LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. .copyright No.__ 

Sheltii-iU 6 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIFE OF 

THE 



Rev. Henry Harbaugh, d.d. 



By Linn Harbaugh, Esq. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND EULOGY. 



u Selig stud die das Heimweh haben, 
Denn sie soLlen nach Hans kommen.' 



Philadelphia : 



Reformed Church Publication Board. 
Sunday-school Board of the Reformed Church. 



TWO COPIES H£u£iVEjJ 

Library of Congress 
affile of the 

FEB ^3 1900 

Ueglster of Copyright* 






>879 



Copyright 1900 

By Reformed Church Publication Board, and Sunday-school Board of 

Reformed Church. 



•ICOND COPY, 



1U).U.\^o ( 



O 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introductory . . The Rev. Nathan C. Schaeffer, D.D., 5-19 
Eulogy . . . The Rev. Em'l V. Gerhart, D.D., LL.D., 21-55 
Hymns and Poems of Henry Harbaugh — 

"Jesus, I live to Thee " 57 

" Jesus, my Shepherd " % 57-58 

"Jesus, to Thy Cross I Hasten " 58 

"The Mystic Weaver" 59-62 

"Heemweh " 63-67 

"Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick " 68-72 

I. Ancestry 73-89 

II. Childhood and Youth on the Farm ... 90- no 

III. The Student and Apprentice in the West . 111-131 

IV. Marshall College and the Seminary, Mer- 
cersburg, Pa. . . 132-156 

V. Twenty Years in the Ministry 157-193 

VI. The Author and His Works 194-253 

VII. Back to Old Mercersburg 254-302 

Bibliography 303 



EWO. PENGELLY & DRO.. PRS., FIEADING. PA. 





SAW and heard Dr. Harbaugh but once. It 
was a rare privilege. It deepened the impres- 
sion which his articles in the Guardian had 
made, and greatty enhanced the high estimate 
which I had formed of his genius. The occa- 
sion w T as the commencement banquet of Franklin and 
Marshall College in the year 1866. We under- 
graduates were not allowed to participate in the feast ; 
but when the part of the program which consisted of 
toasts was reached, the alumni adjourned to the main 
auditorium of Fulton Hall (since converted into an 
opera house) , and this gave me the opportunity to hear 
Dr. Harbaugh's response to the toast, " The Mercers- 
burg Review. ' ' Its humor and delivery made a deeper 
impression than the oratory of all the eminent men at 
home and abroad whom I have had the good fortune to 
hear at banquets, in the pulpit or from the rostrum. 
This may be due to the fact that the speech was 
delivered in the dialect of my boyhood. He had 
shown the poetic possibilities of the Pennsylvania 
German in the pages of the Guardian ; he was now 
to prove its power and fitness for the purposes of an 
after-dinner speech. When the toast was announced, 
he attracted attention by walking forward after the 



6 IvIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

manner of an old farmer, pulling off a slouch hat with 
both hands, and catching a red bandanna handkerchief 
as it dropped from his forehead. His first sentence, 

1 ' Es gebt gar greislich gelerente I,eut, und Ich bin awe 
aner dafun," 

(" There are some very learned people, and I am one of 

'em,") 

sent a flash of merriment through the assemblage. 
When he proceeded to enumerate the learned lan- 
guages— 

" Es gebt sieva gelehrte Sproche, Englisch nnd Deutsch, 
Lateinisch und Griechish nnd Hebraeisch ; sell sin fiinf. Die 
sechst haest Pennsylvania Deutsch, die sievet is German 
Reformed," — 

(" There are seven learned languages, English and German, 
Latin and Greek and Hebrew ; these are five. The sixth is 
called Pennsylvania German, the seventh is German Re- 
formed," — 

there were shouts of laughter over the entire hall. 
The merriment reached its climax when he referred to 
the venerable Dr. John W. Nevin as 

" Der Chon Nevin, do navig mir." 
(" John Nevin, here aside of me.") 

The applause then was like that of a great convention 
and lasted for some time. The impression made by 
his enumeration of the contributors and by his descrip- 
tion of the work it accomplished before its publication 
was suspended, is evident from the fact that the Re- 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

view was revived, and under different names its pub- 
lication has been continued to the present time. 

Dr. Harbaugh was a typical Pennsylvania German. 
The dialect and its range of ideas he acquired at his 
mother's knee and from the companions of his child- 
hood and youth. His powers of work and his love of 
fun were developed under the tutelage of the old farm 
and under the influence of its customs, traditions and 
forms of speech. He was thoroughly familiar with the 
homes and habits, the social and religious life of the 
Pennsylvanians of German ancestry. He knew their 
merits, foibles, and shortcomings, their peculiar ways 
and superstitions, their highest hopes and noblest 
emotions. He admired their frankness and simplicity, 
their thrift and industry, their honesty and integrity. 
He shared their fondness for good meals, their sense of 
humor, their hatred of every form of sham and hum- 
bug. He summed up in his personality- and exem- 
plified in his life the best characteristics of these 
people. Of all the men whom they have given to the 
world, he was the most gifted and the most productive 
from a literary point of view. Even in his criticism of 
the common school system he reflected their views, 
their fears and their prejudices. Had he lived to our 
time he would have accepted, as a fixed fact among all 
civilized nations, schools supported by taxation ; and 
he would have been untiring in the effort to put into 
these schools teachers of the highest skill and the 
most unblemished character. 

Dr. Harbaugh was more than a Pennsylvania Ger- 
man. He mastered the English so well that his style 



8 IvIFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

was envied and admired by many whose mother tongue 
was English and who had enjoyed far superior educa- 
tional advantages. Such was his command of Anglo- 
Saxon words that many of his sentences consist almost 
entirely of monosyllables. In one respect he was like 
Prof. Felton of Harvard, who, on handing a manuscript 
to the printer, said : I profess Greek, not spelling. 
Although Dr. Harbaugh could never have taken a 
prize at a spelling bee, he always stuffed his sentences 
full of sense and thought. He always aimed to make 
his discourses intelligible and had little patience with 
those who cannot or will not make their ideas clear to 
their audiences. His assimilation of the fruits of 
scholarship and sound learning was thorough and 
rapid, yet he never drifted away from the common 
people. He voiced their sentiments and aspirations in 
prose and poetry, and sought to bring absolute and 
eternal truth within the comprehension of the humblest. 
His talks to children made a lasting impression upon all 
who attended his Sunday School. Several of the hymns 
which he wrote have come into general use and are now 
helping to stimulate the hopes, to enrich the devotions, 
and to elevate the aspirations of Christian worshippers 
wherever the English language is spoken. The best 
thoughts of the best men were his special delight. 
Everything human and divine had an interest for him. 
By taking up into himself the best things in literature 
and the humanities he became a representative of 
humanity in the best and broadest sense of the term. 
Jesus Christ was the centre of his thinking, his affec- 



INTRODUCTION. g 

tions, his purposes, and everything that he wrote and 
spoke was intended to build up the Kingdom of God. 
As a preacher he had few T equals and no superior in 
the Reformed Church. His sermons were fresh, inter- 
esting, instructive, and edifying. An audience com- 
posed largely of students and professors is very hard to 
please and very difficult to hold. Of their own accord 
the students of the college flocked to his church and 
filled its pews. With pleasure and profit they listened 
to his lectures on cultus and on the Heidelberg 
Catechism as well as to his regular sermons. One who 
often heard him writes : 

1 ' He had the qualities of a popular speaker. His clear, 
round, musical voice he could control and use with marvelous 
power. A good voice is a rare advantage to a public speaker. 
Whether this gift was wholly natural or the result of elocution- 
ary study I cannot tell. He could be distinctly heard in every 
part of the largest church, even when speaking on the lowest 
key. His utterance was always slow and distinct ; indeed, 
sometimes it seemed slow to a fault. Fluency, as some men 
count it, he had not. He lacked that rapidity of utterance so 
common among public speakers, which allows syllables and 
ideas to tread on each other's heels in hurried confusion. His 
deliberateness of articulation sometimes made him seem 
awkward and hesitating. With slow and measured accent, 
effective and well chosen emphasis and few gestures, he rolled 
out his short, sonorous sentences like pleasant music. Few 
men combine depth with clearness, as he did. He could see 
truth in the most trivial themes and subjects, and knew how to 
show it to others. Often, when he announced an odd text or 
subject, his hearers wondered how anybody could tell people 
anything worth listening to on such a theme. To the tiniest 
flower and the most insignificant animal he could give a tongue 
to utter an impressive sermon. He abounded in apt illustra- 



IO LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

tions ; preached frequently by parables taken from common 
life. He dealt much in ' Hikes .' His style was unique. He 
was profound yet simple, learned yet clear. His writings and 
sermons abound in short sentences and short Saxon words. 
He mediated between the deepest philosophy and the practical 
sense of the common people. Freely using sources of learning, 
he used them as a tree uses the earth and air, by reproducing 
and assimilating their substance. His sermons were aglow 
with life. You felt the warm blood coursing through every 
sentence. He could throw a charm around the most abstruse 
and apparently barren theme, and draw from it a cup of cold 
water for the panting heart of the most illiterate day laborer. 
These lines will be read by men of intelligence and earnest 
thought, who remember the time when they were adrift on the 
dark, stormy sea of skepticism. Without faith, without virtue, 
without hope, providentially they were led to hear him once. 
An undefinable something led them there a second time. And 
thereafter he drew them closer and closer to himself. Step by 
step, and often unconsciously to himself, he brought their 
imperilled souls into the ark of safety. Many such there are 
whose doubts he solved, and whom he led to the Lamb of 
God." 

It is the privilege of a gifted writer to influence the 
hearts and lives of many with whom he never comes 
into personal contact. His Golden Censer is still 
without a rival as a book of devotion for young mem- 
bers of the church. In it he is still guiding the devo- 
tions of youth and lifting their inner life to a higher 
plane. His books on Heaven have consoled multitudes 
in their hours of sorrow and bereavement. An instance 
in point will not be uninteresting. A New England 
educator and author, Dr. William A. Mowry, was 
making a trip through Pennsylvania. When the sta- 
tion Lancaster was announced, he said it reminded him 



INTRODUCTION. ! x 

of Henry Harbaugh, in whose " Heavenly Recogni- 
tion' ' he became interested as far back as 1851, the 
year that the book was published. Depressed by the 
death of a friend, he had gotten relief from it. He 
read it again and again. Finding the argument satis- 
factory, he has since used several copies as gifts to 
those who have lost friends by death. Once while on 
his way from New York to Boston he met a stranger 
wearing weeds on his hat as a sign of mourning for a 
deceased wife. After some conversation the mourner 
asked : ' ' Do you believe in the immortality of the 
soul?" They discussed Butler's Argument for the 
belief in a future state and exchanged cards on parting. 
Harbaugh' s Book on Heavenly Recognition was sent 
and courteously acknowledged. Later the two met 
again. The influence of the book was evident. The 
bereaved man had risen above his despondency and 
settled in his mind the question of a hereafter. To 
cause a good book to be read by another is to show a 
double favor ; it benefits the reader and widens the 
blessed influence of the author. 

While Dr. Harbaugh was writing the Lives of the 
Fathers of the Reformed Church, he heard of a trunk 
full of documents collected by Rev. Philip Boehm. He 
and two other clergymen traced the trunk to a building 
on Cherry Street in Philadelphia. Upon learning that 
the building, with all its contents, had been destroyed, 
he shed tears over this irreparable loss. 

During their search for the trunk and for historic 
reminiscences the three stopped at a suburban home 



I2 IvlFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

and were handsomely entertained. Next day on their 
return to the city, as the house was disappearing over 
the brow of the hill, he stopped to bless and gaze at the 
home, saying : ' ' There dwells a very nice family. God 
be praised that there are such families. Would that 
there were more of them. ,, Those whose homes he 
entered as a guest say that his conversation was always 
entertaining and instructive. His genial countenance 
had a power which few could resist. Traveling in a 
car, he sat behind two gentlemen whose profanity 
annoyed him. He leaned forward and said : i ' I notice 
that you are men of prominence and gentlemen of cul- 
ture, but the oaths with which you interlard your con- 
versation are very annoying to me, a minister of the 
Gospel. I know it is more from the force of habit than 
from any evil intention.' ' They felt inclined to resent 
the interruption, but when they saw his genial face, 
they thanked him for his kind counsel, whereupon he 
said : * ' If you must use expletives in your sentences, 
say potatoes and beans.' ' The gentlemen changed 
their conversation and grew very fond of him before 
the end of the journey. 

Dr. Harbaugh was quick-witted and seldom at a loss 
for a reply. Among his warm personal friends was 
Rev. Samuel Bowman, Rector of St. James Episcopal 
Church at Lancaster, Pa. He congratulated the latter 
upon his elevation to the Episcopacy. "Ah," replied 
the newly-made bishop, u after all you grant that there 
is something in the Episcopal office." "Of course I 
do," was the reply. " As an ordained minister of the 
Reformed Church I have for many years performed the 



INTRODUCTION. I3 

rite of confirmation, and I congratulate you on your 
elevation to my own rank." 

One incident in his life recalls a parallel incident in 
the life of Socrates. A stranger on beholding the face 
of this famous Athenian exclaimed : ' ' That man is a 
glutton.' ' The inference was a great blunder, for of 
all the men of that period Socrates was the most tem- 
perate in all things. The incident in the life of Dr. 
Harbaugh also grew out of his personal appearance. 
Says the writer already quoted : 

"In person lie was of medium height, inclined to corpu- 
lency. His florid face gave evidence of a vigorous constitution 
which he by no means possessed. ' What a pity that such a 
powerful preacher should be a drunkard,' said a gentleman 
who had just heard him preach in Pottsville, Pa. His red face 
misled the man. The temperance cause had no abler champion 

than Dr. Harbaugh He was simple in his style of 

dress, no less than in his style of writing and speaking. He 
despised the dandy, above all the literary and clerical dandy. 
Whilst he often gave his clothes to the poor, his own garments 
not unfrequently bore marks of long use. Although one of 
the most earnest of men, he was, on all proper occasions, brim 
full of fun. Would that some one could collect his ' table 
talk,' his sayings around the festive board and among the 
circles of his more intimate friends. Few have such a fund of 
anecdotes as he had, and few could tell them with such 
dramatic effect. Many of these have passed into current use, 
and are often quoted by his friends in conversation. With a 
sort of humorous abandon he could throw himself on the study 
lounge, and entertain a group of friends by the hour amid 
roars of mirthful laughter. ' ' 

Although fond of wit and humor, he was always 
reverent and always insisted on reverence for sacred 



14 



IvIFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



things. A student of theology announced that the 
religious exercises would be opened by the singing of 
a hymn. He reminded the student that the Reformed 
Church holds religious services, not exercises. On 
the floor of synod he described the difference between 
churchly and unchurchly denominations ; the former, 
he said, hold religious services, the latter religious 
exercises. The distinction was emphasized by ges- 
tures and bodily movements resembling those of the 
athletic field and the old-fashioned revival meetings. 
In the class room he invariably addressed the students 
by using the term brethren, rather than the phrase, 
young gentlemen. The epithets applied to him by 
those who studied under him, show the profound 
esteem and affection which they cherish for him. The 
secret of his influence over young and old is found in 
the superior qualities of heart which he possessed. 
" Great thoughts spring from the heart," says a 
philosopher. "Out of the heart are the issues of 
life," says the Book of Proverbs. The sources of a 
man's influence for good are found in the heart rather 
than in the head. Because he had nothing else to 
give, Pestalozzi took off his silver shoe-buckles and 
gave them to a beggar. Harbaugh, on a frosty morn- 
ing, took off his shoes and put on his slippers that he 
might give the shoes to a barefooted, thinly clad tramp 
at the front door. The student in need of funds 
always found in him a helpful friend. During the 
meeting of the Lutheran Synod at Lancaster a student 
from Gettysburg stopped at his house. When asked 
what claim he had upon the hospitality of Dr. Har- 



INTRODUCTION. 



15 



baugh, he replied that he was a reader of the Guardian. 
One of the most touching incidents belongs to the 
pastorate at L,ewisburg, and is best given in the words 
of another : 

' ' An old member of his flock was an habitual drunkard. In 
his soberer moments he always repented of his folly. The 
pastor saw the man's weakness. The cause of temperance then 
was violently assailed. The new pastor became known as a 
temperance champion. All manner of threats were made to 
intimidate him. These only incited him to greater boldness. 
He took the old drunkard by the hand ; sat with him in his 
little hut by the hour. For years the inebriate's hard heart 
had been proof against all arguments. But this was a change 
of base. In his small room the pastor knelt by his side, and 
prayed God to help him lift the fallen man up. His soft words 
of love fell on the old man's heart like the first rays of the 
spring sun, thawing the earth and covering the fields with 
green. This he could not resist. ' Here is a man that loves 
me — me, a poor drunkard.' Thus he thought and felt. He was 
melted down with keenest penitence. There was joy in that 
little home, there was joy in heaven at the sight. The old man 
w T ept for sorrow and his old wife for joy. The pastor knew well 
the force of his old habits — how hard it would be to break away 
from the bent of twenty years' drunkenness and become a 
sober man. Now the tempter will try his utmost to keep the 
poor man out of heaven, to keep him at his cups. The pastor 
warned him against danger ; entreated him to shun all drinking 
places, attend church, prayer meeting ; urged him too to pray 
every day in his family ; all of which advice he obeyed. 
Thenceforth his old Bible and prayer book, for many years 
sadly neglected, were his daily companions. He was regularly 
at his place in church. One night he was absent from the 

prayer-meeting. ' Where is Peter ?' was the anxious 

inquiry of the pastor at the close of the services. Though late 
at night, he at once proceeded to his house. The poor wife 



Z 6 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

knew not where he was. ' Surely some wicked persons have 
entrapped him, to defeat my well meant endeavors, and ruin 
his poor soul.' Through the window of a tavern he sees the 
old man at the bar, with his carousing comrades. He hesitated 
for a moment. Would not those drunken ruffians attempt to 
beat and kill him if he interfered ? No matter, the poor old 
friend must be rescued. Bravely he stepped up to him. 
* Peter, you were not at the meeting this evening. Come, I 
will go home with you. ' Arm in arm the two walked out of 
the bar-room, through the dark street to his home, none of the 
cowardly braggarts daring to molest him. Little was spoken 
as they walked homeward. How sorely the poor man repented 
of his fall. Thus the pastor watched and nursed him till the 
end of his labors among this people." 

During his pastorate at Lancaster he refused to 
install a saloon-keeper as elder. So profound was the 
impression made by this refusal that the man changed 
his business, prospered as a dealer in coal and lumber, 
became a consistent member of the church, spent 
money and time in promoting her interests, and died a 
faithful Christian. Such fruits go far to justify what 
some regarded as intemperate zeal in the cause of 
temperance. 

Dr. Harbaugh had himself seen trouble and sorrow, 
and hence he could sympathize with others. He knew 
from experience the struggles of the student, the 
Christian, the pastor, the parent, and for this reason 
he could console others in their hours of trial, disap- 
pointment and bereavement. And yet he was habitu- 
ally cheerful and buoyant in spirit. To quote once 
more from the writer upon whom we have so often 
leaned : ' ' Dr. Harbaugh possessed the happy talent 
of looking at the bright side of things. If the silver 



INTRODUCTION. ! 7 

lining on the dark cloud was never so small, he was 
sure to see it and enjoy it. Few men as earnest as he 
are so hopeful. Indeed, in practical matters his over- 
sanguine views now and then misled him. He had no 
sympathy with the morbid ecclesiastical croakers, w 7 ho 
all the while tremble for the ark, and are nervously 
apprehensive that God cannot take care of His own 
affairs. Neither did he waste his ammunition in 
endeavoring to attain the unattainable." Only one 
human life has been without spot and without blemish. 
Henry Harbaugh did not claim to be infallible. He 
had his faults. Several things which he did from a 
sense of duty have been severely criticised and con- 
demned by his warmest friends and admirers. To 
dilate upon these might please some who delight to 
feast upon the weaknesses and imperfections of human 
nature. Some men's tastes are like that of the vulture, 
which seeks and sees only carrion, while all the 
beauties of the landscape lie open to view. I prefer 
to pass over any faults which he may have had, in the 
kindly spirit in which he himself wrote of one dis- 
missed from the ministry at a meeting of the Synod of 
Reading, in 1782 : 

1 ' What the nature of this trouble was or for what cause he 
was dismissed, I do not know — nor was I zealous in ascertain- 
ing the cause. It inspires our heart with strange sadness when 
we find an unpleasant savor gather around the name of one, 
especially a minister, who has long been dead — especially when 
we know him to have been the spiritual guide of our ancestors. 
And if the solemn records of the past incidentally remove the 
veil from his faults and failings, the best we can do is 

' To weep over them in silence and close it again.' " 



!8 UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

.The foregoing quotations, with the exception of the 
last, are from the pen of Rev. Dr. Benjamin Bausman, 
whose articles in the Guardian belong to the original 
sources of information, and who sustained to Dr. Har- 
baugh a relation in some respects similar to the relation 
which the beloved disciple sustained to the Master. 
Memorial volumes have been written of other men who 
accomplished much less for the world and the Kingdom 
of Christ, and who have far less claim upon posterity 
than Dr. Harbaugh. The details of a life so rich in 
good works as his was, should not be allowed to drop 
into oblivion. The letters which he wrote at different 
periods form a very interesting study, because they 
show how a boy of Pennsylvania German parentage 
may gradually acquire the graces of style and diction 
in another tongue. The life which is here given to 
the public is from the pen of his son, with whom it has 
been a labor of love. In my judgment, the most glow- 
ing tribute ever paid to the genius of Dr. Harbaugh is 
from the pen of his life-long friend and successor in 
the chair of dogmatic theology, Dr. E. V. Gerhart, 
who has at my request consented to its publication in 
this memorial volume.* One interesting phase of his 
life is not adapted to the purposes for which this 
biography has been prepared. I refer to the gradual 
development of his theological views, as these may be 
gathered from his writings and his unpublished ser- 
mons. This will be a proper theme for discussion in 
the pages of the Reformed Rcvie7v. Finally, no apolog} 7 
is needed for reprinting several of his best poems in 
English and Pennsylvania German, for these show him 



INTRODUCTION. 



19 



as he was when his inner life was at its best. Every 
other purpose has been subordinated to the primary 
aim of doing full justice to the life and genius of the 
man whose biography is herewith offered to the public. 

Nathan C. Schakffkr. 

Harrisburg, Pa. , October 29, 1899. 



*I distinctly recall that while I was a student at Mercersburg, Dr. K. K. 
Higbee, then Professor of Church History and E)xegesis, cut short one of 
his lectures, saying: "I must prepare to be eyes for Dr. Gerhart." This 
enigmatical remark became intelligible when, at the unveiling of the 
Harbaugh monument, he proceeded to read an address which he said was 
from the pen of Dr. Gerhart. From what I recollect of the nature and 
length of the address I feel warranted in asserting that it was the address 
herewith printed for the first time. 




This brief memoir of my bosom friend was written 
early in 1868, only several weeks after his lamented 
death, when the image of the man was fresh and life- 
like on the tablet of my memory. The occasion of 
writing it I do not now, after the lapse of more than 
thirty-one years, recall, nor do I recollect what use 
may have been made of it. All I know definitely is 
that the memoir was never published. 

When, about ten days ago, the Rev. Dr. N. C. 
Schaeffer came to see me for some information respect- 
ing Dr. Harbaugh, the interview called this manuscript 
to my mind, which some months before I had discov- 
ered among my papers. After he had read it, he ex- 
pressed the opinion that the memoir would supply 
what was needed for the forthcoming volume ; and at 
his request I assented to its publication. 

The portraiture has been reconsidered and revised ; 
but after a deliberate review the prevalent tone of the 
representation remains ; and I find no reason to change 
my judgment of the man in any particular. Here and 
there some verbal modifications were necessary ; and at 
some points the language was improved. But in all 
respects the memoir reflects the conception of my 
friend as it was formed when it was originally com- 
mitted to paper. 

Theological Setni?iary, La?icaster, Pa., 
October 27th, 18 pp. 




By the Rev. EML. V. GERHART, D.D., LL.D. 



The Rev. Henry Harbaugh, Doctor of Divinity, and 
Professor of Didactic and Pastorai, Theology, in 
the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church, 
Mercersburg, Pa. Born Oct. 28th, a.d. 1817. Died 
Dec. 28th, 1867. Aged 50 yrs. and 2 mo. 




[HE life of a great and good man, 
who lives by faith in Christ and 
offers himself a sacrifice to Him in 
the service of His Church, reveals 
the truth and power of divine 
grace. Growing up among us, 
passing by degrees from the imperfection and the 
crudeness of youth into the vigor and ripeness of 
manhood, our judgment of his worth, whilst living, 
is more or less obscured by the memory of the 
deficiencies and foibles of early life. So long as he 
moves before our eyes ; so long as we mingle with 
him in the social circle, and stand with him side by 
side in the great conflicts of the church ; so long as 
we see his beaming eye, and hear his clear, manly 



24 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

voice, we enjoy the richness of his spirit, and lean 
on his powerful mind, whilst at the same time we 
may now and then differ with him in opinion and 
find fault with his conduct. We acknowledge his 
intellectual superiority and his sterling moral excel- 
lencies, yet he seems to be a mari such as we are in 
character, and in some respects we may even think 
him to be inferior to ourselves. Thus it comes that 
so long as he goes in and out among us we appre- 
ciate his virtues but partially, and fail to recognize 
fully the blessing of God in bestowing on the 
church so precious a gift. 

But when the inscrutable providence of God 
suddenly closes the life of such a man in prema- 
ture death ; when on a bleak day in mid-winter we 
are called upon to carry his lifeless remains away 
from his study and the embraces of his family, and 
lay them in the cold grave to moulder into dust, 
our hopes of future service vanish, our joy is 
turned into sorrow, and we wake up, as it were, to 
a sense of great and irreparable loss ; and we are 
prepared as we were not before to estimate the 
genius of the man, the zeil of the Christian, the 
fidelity of the minister, and the ability of the 
theologian, as these qualities really met in his life 
and character. 

The Rev. Henry Harbaugh, D. D., Professor of 
Theology in the Theological Seminary of the 
(German) Reformed Church at Mercersburg, 



IN MKMORIAM. 



25 



Pennsylvania, did not belong to the ordinary class 
of educated men. Whatever the position he 
occupied, or in whatever relation he stood, he dis- 
tinguished himself. He stood out above the 
generality of men as a thinker and writer, as a 
preacher of the Gospel, as a debater on the floor of 
synod, as a representative minister of the Reformed 
Church, and as a leader of the people. This was 
seen and felt throughout the entire Reformed 
Church, East and West ; and was acknowledged 
also by all, outside of her communion, who knew 
him or read the productions of his prolific pen. 
Hence the deep and peculiar sense of loss and of 
sorrow that fills the hearts of ministers and people 
throughout the length and breadth of the church. 
Hence, too, it is becoming that we reflect on his 
character, on his extraordinary activity, on his 
genial and earnest spirit. It is due to his memory. 
It responds to the general sentiment of propriety, 
and will be profitable to ourselves. 

Dr. Harbaugh challenges our attention as a man. 
Born in a Pennsylvania German family consisting 
of twelve children, of whom he was the tenth ; 
brought up on a farm at the foot of the South 
Mountain ; trained by an honest and industrious 
father, and by a gentle, pious, and noble mother ; 
moulded by the customs, manners and habits pre- 
vailing in the social life of our German popula- 
tion ; baptized into the communion of Christ's 



26 UFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

mystical body ; carefully instructed in the doctrines 
and duties of our holy religion, and gifted with a 
rare combination of extraordinary natural endow- 
ments, he grew up into youth and manhood in the 
element of German Ge7nuethlichkeit, sanctified by 
the grace of the Christian Church. He realized in 
his person, in body, mind and spirit, the richness 
and beauty of the German character, as strength- 
ened by genius and ennobled by living faith in 
Jesus Christ. 

He was a representative man. This he was 
in relation to the race. The true idea of a 
man, or the ideal type of manhood, was indi- 
vidualized in his spirit and character. So it 
is in a measure in every man. But in Dr. 
Harbaugh the individualization answers more 
fully to the generic type than is common, even 
among devoted ministers of the Gospel. Nature 
and feeling were held subordinate to understand- 
ing ; understanding to reason; reason, to faith. 
Mind ruled the body ; spirit ruled the mind ; and 
Christ ruled the spirit. He realized the normal 
order of the manifold powers of a man ; not indeed 
perfectly ; but in such a degree of approach to per- 
fection that the reality could not fail to command 
admiration and profound regard. He moved in the 
sphere of the true, the beautiful, and the good ; he 
made all outward objects and earthly relations sub- 
servient to these spiritual ends ; yet he was tender- 



IN MBMORIAM. 



27 



hearted, and in quick sympathy even with the 
trifling bodily wants of little children. 

Dr. Harbaugh possessed great facility in acquir- 
ing knowledge ; the knowledge of men and things, 
of literature, science and philosophy. He digested 
rapidly what he learned, and rewrought it for him- 
self. More active than receptive, no fact, sugges- 
tion, or thought was laid on the shelf of his mem- 
ory like a labeled fossil ; but he penetrated the in- 
most sense of acquired knowledge freely. Breath- 
ing into it his own warmth and freshness, and 
weaving for it a garment from the rich resources of 
his genius, he reproduced it in a form answerable 
to the peculiar type of his own spirit. 

True genius has two sides. On the one hand, it 
discovers new facts, new principles, produces new 
ideas, and moves with singular freshness and 
vivacity among the common facts and ordinary 
relations of life ; on the other hand, it looks with 
keen vision into the deep and most general laws 
of God as these permeate and govern nature and 
society. The new is bound by the old, the surface 
facts by unchanging law. Beholding the most gen- 
eral laws and the broadest relations which inform 
the constitution of the world, genius apprehends 
particular events and single things, not in a super- 
ficial or arbitrary manner, but as they grow forth 
from universal powers. Hence come new and 
striking views of common events and of well-known 



28 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

facts — new to less-favored men, who fail to descend 
to the root of things, and therefore judge according 
to transient manifestations, not according to right- 
eous judgment. 

Both these forms of action were developed in the 
genius of our sainted brother. With what freedom 
he walked into the inner, hidden sanctuary of 
truth ! Yet with what delight he looked at single 
objects as enshrining general laws. How nice his 
perception of the beautiful and sublime ; and how 
keen his sense of the incongruous and ridiculous. 
The strong current of profound thought mingled 
with an unceasing flow of wit and humor. 

The mind of Dr. Harbaugh, however, was no 
less practical than profound. A strong will, energy 
of purpose, intense and persevering activity were 
among his leading characteristics. Indeed, so 
prominent were these traits that, to a superficial 
observer, they seemed to be absorbing and almost 
exclusive. His thoughts did not sleep nor slum- 
ber, but they passed over into resolves, plans, and 
pursuits, and his plans were realized in acts and 
deeds. 

As a consequence he was always at work. When 
he conceived a thought, he began to revolve and 
mature it ; and whilst maturing it, he brought it 
forth in outward form, and it gained full expres- 
sion. No sooner had he accomplished one self- 
imposed task than he was already engaged in pre- 



IN MKMORIAM. 



29 



paring for another. Nor did his labors simply 
succeed one another. Various kinds of work were 
upon his hands at the same time. Visitation of 
the sick and the poor ; the preparation of a sermon ; 
the writing of a book, or of an article for the 
Review or for the Messenger, or for some other 
periodical ; attendance upon the meeting of a 
committee or of an ecclesiastical body, and the 
composition of a German or English poem were 
all receiving attention during the same month and 
even during the same week, if not sometimes on 
the same day. The secret of such various activ- 
ities is found in the fact that he was always read- 
ing, always thinking, always writing, always 
working, and, I might add, always joking. 
Among ail my acquaintances I know not a man 
who united such intense activity, such earnestness 
of character, with such extraordinary geniality and 
playfulness of spirit. God intended, he would 
say, that a man should laugh as well as pray ; for 
there are certain muscles of the face which he 
never uses but when he laughs. Nor were his 
multitudinous activities periodical. He labored 
day and night, from week to week, from month to 
month, and from year to year, with indefatigable 
zeal, gathering fresh energy with every accom- 
plished work for a new undertaking. Even his 
short seasons of recreation in July and August 
were not a cessation of work, but only a change. 



3° 



IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



Whilst entering with keen zest into the sports of a 
fishing excursion, a huckleberry party, or a moun- 
tain ramble, he was still studying. Beneath the 
play of fancy there was a deep undercurrent of 
reflection. And he would write as well as play 
and think. Sitting down under a tree by a stream, 
he would take out a blank book, which it was his 
rule to carry in his pocket, and write the outline 
of a sermon perhaps, or the stanza of a poem, or 
the plan of a book, or a few seed-thoughts. That 
was his chaos, as he called it, on which his creative 
mind wrought afterwards, and brought forth order 
and beauty. Some of his best poems and prose 
productions had their beginning in this chaotic 
jumble of ideas. Indeed, I may add here, that 
such was his general practice. Instead of develop- 
ing and maturing an idea or train of thought in 
his mind, he put down his thoughts at once — 
crude, half-formed, and half-expressed thoughts — 
on paper confusedly, and then, brooding over this 
chaotic mass, as in the beginning the spirit of God 
was brooding upon the face of the waters, his mind 
wrought it into logical form and order. 

Yet Dr. Harbaugh was rarely in a hurry. He 
seemed to have a great deal of leisure. A visitor 
was ever welcomed to his study with a smile, and 
entertained in free and humorous conversation. 
Nor was he given to absence of mind. Whilst he 
moved in the sphere of philosophic thinking, he was 



IN MBMORIAM. 



31 



a close observer of society and nature, and alive to 
all that was going on around him in church and 
state. His senses were as susceptible to the exter- 
nal world as if he never entered into the inner 
region of metaphysical truth ; and he descended into 
the hidden depths of the ideal world with as much 
freedom as if he were indifferent to the objects of 
sense. 

Nor did Dr. Harbaugh concern himself about a 
system of working. An external system, he said, 
was a hindrance. What was to be done, he did ; 
he did it at once ; he did it by day or by night, 
morning, noon or evening, just as the occasion met 
him, whether in the best mood or not. Nor was he 
noted as an early riser. Though there was nothing 
which he was less than a sluggard, yet he did not 
observe Franklin's rule. He would correct Dr. 
Franklin facetiously. Go to bed early, he said, and 
get up late, but then keep awake all day. Here 
was one secret of his noble and useful life. He was 
awake, in mind and body, always awake. He 
suffered no power, neither mental nor moral faculty, 
nor bodily sense, to go to sleep. 

The energies of his will, the activity of his mind, 
and the conduct of his life were governed by his 
conscience. No one had a higher sense of honor. 
Nor was any one less capable of doing what was 
mean or ignoble. Yet it was not honor so much as 
right and duty that inspired and controlled him. 



32 



UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



He must do right regardless of consequences. What 
had he to do with consequences ? he would ask. 
Consequences belong to God. Hence he was as 
firm as a rock. He was not self-willed and stub- 
born, as some have alleged. If approached on 
moral grounds he was as docile and tractable as a 
child ; but if you would attempt to move him from 
his purpose by any considerations of policy, you 
would not only fail utterly, but excite his intense 
indignation, if not call down upon your head the 
fierceness of his wrath. 

You may say that he sometimes erred or did 
wrong. That may be so. His best friends some- 
times differed with him. But he did not do wrong 
as wrong. What I or you might think was wrong, 
he firmly believed to be right. Convince him that 
he was wrong, and he would at once abandon any 
cherished purpose ; for he would rather cut off his 
right hand than commit a known wrong. But fail 
to do that, fail to convince him, and you might as 
well try to move Gibraltar. This was universally 
felt and acknowledged by all who understood the 
high-toned moral character of the man. The con- 
sequence was that he commanded the confidence 
and respect of his enemies no less than the affection 
and devotion of his friends. For Dr. Harbaugh 
was a man that had enemies, and bitter ones too. 
Clear and uncompromising in judgment, candid and 
straightforward in speech, conscientious in all his 



IN MKMORIAM. 33 

conduct, he stood up for right and truth in the face 
of any opposition, and dealt blows upon corruption 
and vice with a rod of iron. Such a man could 
not be at peace with all classes of persons in the 
world or in the church. Iyike those of his Master, 
his words were a two-edged sword. 

This exhibition of Dr. Harbaugh's genius, his 
practical activity and moral character, implies the 
presence of another distinguishing element which 
quickened every attribute of his nature. He was 
endowed with deep, intense feeling. He felt what 
he thought ; he felt what he resolved ; he felt 
what he said and did. He had no dead thoughts ; 
no icy purposes. He could not maintain the right 
and enforce truth in dry, logical formulas. He 
could not expose error and denounce sin with com- 
posure. Rising from the depths of his warm heart 
his thoughts glowed, and his words were like live 
coals. Wherever they fell they kindled a fire. 

Whilst he never spared dishonesty, corruption or 
vice, he was nevertheless tender in his address. 
Full of kindly sympathy with all classes of men, 
he never designedly wounded the feelings of any 
one. 

When he spoke, the spontaneous flow of burn- 
ing thoughts touched responsive chords in the 
hearts of his hearers, and drew them into intimate 
communion with himself. They either felt with 
him, and he carried them along, with free consent 



34 



IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



and delighted in the path of his speech, or they 
felt hostile to him, and followed, hovering about 
his track, only to resist and to condemn. 

The harmonious union of these vigorous and 
highly developed mental, moral, and emotional ele- 
ments of his person and life, distinguished Dr. 
Harbaugh from among men generally as one in 
whom God's idea of manhood was realized above 
the common measure, and constituted him a leader 
of thought among educated and thoughtful men, 
and a leader of practical religious activity among 
all classes of practical men. He represented them 
in truth. The faithful echo of their half-conscious 
wants, he voiced their thoughts and desires. For 
this reason they heard him gladly, trusted him 
without reserve, and loved him like a brother. 

But his character as a man, true as it was to the 
generic type, was just as distinctive of the national 
life in which he stood. Dr. Harbaugh was a Ger- 
man ; not an Englishman, nor a Scotchman, much 
less a Frenchman ; but a German, an American 
German, from head to foot. The blood of a Penn- 
sylvania farmer flowed in his veins, and with his 
mother's milk he drank in das tiefe gemuethliche 
Wesen of the German farming population. In all 
his moral and religious instincts he was one of 
themselves. He understood their prejudices, lived 
in their modes of thought, shared their feelings, 
and sympathized with them in all their religious 



IN MBMORIAM. ] 35 

and educational needs. He loved their language, 
their peculiar homely dialect, and rescued it, as 
Burns did the Gaelic dialect, from death and 
oblivion by the baptism of his genius. Of all the 
sons of the German farmers of Pennsylvania, who 
have sought the halls of learning and entered the 
sphere of the liberal professions, he is the first one, 
that, seeing the capabilities of a dialect, before only 
neglected and despised, and laying hold of it with 
new-creating energy, wrought it into the genuine 
forms of living poetry and breathed into these 
forms the genial spirit of their own social life, thus 
at once ennobling the dialect by consecrating it to 
the spiritual ends of fine art, and clothing it with 
honor and immortality. To him belongs the honor 
of being, as he has been called, the poet of the 
American German people. He is their true repre- 
sentative man, the representative of their genius 
on the elevated plane of religion, science, and art. 
The distinguishing attributes of Dr. Harbaugh's 
personality as a man underlay and modified his 
character as a Christian and a minister of the 
Gospel. Nature is the basis and occasion of grace. 
Grace, in turn, takes up nature into its bosom, 
creates and fashions it anew. Grace realizes and 
perfects the idea and purpose of nature. In this 
relation, pre-eminently did the personality of the 
man stand to the character of the Christian and 
the minister in the life of the Rev. Dr. Harbaugh. 



36 UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

The most prominent trait in his Christian char- 
acter, was devotion to the person of Jesus Christ, 
and to His mystical body, the Church ; — devotion to 
Christ as God manifest in the flesh, really present 
and living in His mystical body on earth through- 
out all the ages and in the midst of all the contra- 
dictions and convulsions of time ; — a devotion that 
was intelligent, intense, exclusive, all-absorbing, 
steady and unfaltering, always fresh and always 
vigorous. Devotion to Christ and devotion to the 
Church were inseparable. The Church was the 
original human life created anew by the Holy Ghost 
and perfected in the person of Christ ; perpetu- 
ated by the same divine agency through the sacra- 
ment of Holy Baptism ; nourished and matured by 
the preaching of the Gospel and the Communion 
of the Body and Blood of the Son ; existing on 
earth, in time and space, in the form of an organized 
kingdom, which as to its constitution is both divine 
and human, as to its manifestation is both visible 
and invisible. It was the true and only Noachian 
Ark to which all men must flee for deliverance from 
the overwhelming curse of sin. To labor in the 
Church and for the Church, was, for him, to labor 
for Christ. The notion that a man may either 
come to Christ, or labor for Christ, apart from and 
outside of the Church, was a delusion, fraught with 
tendencies towards infidelity. 



IN MKMORIAM. 



37 



Such devotion satisfied his heart and conscience. 
To his faith Christ and His Church were not merely 
scriptural doctrines, or beautiful ideas, but they 
were substantial, living realities ; the most real of 
all realities ; the most certain and glorious of all 
certain and glorious things. Christ was present and 
living in His kingdom ; He was the very presence 
of the fulness of the Godhead in the Son of the 
Virgin Mary. He was the consummate revelation 
of the Creator in the perfection of the creature, and 
the reconciliation of a just and holy God with a 
fallen and sinful race. This most comprehensive 
fact, seen by the eye of faith as a present, living 
reality, authenticated itself as the most certain 
truth to the consciousness of Dr. Harbaugh, and 
satisfied his deepest needs as a dependent creature, 
as a man, as a thinker, as a moral agent, and as a 
sinner. Convinced that the acts of God could not 
be lies any more than the words of God, he believed 
that in baptism God sealed to him the forgiveness 
of sins and the quickening of the new life in Christ ; 
and that in the Holy Eucharist Christ nourished 
the new life of faith by the communication of 
Himself. 

Apprehending Jesus Christ in this light, Dr. 
Harbaugh believed in his divine Lord and Saviour 
with a faith that enlisted all the energies of his 
will, every faculty of his intellect, all the feelings 
of his heart, and no less also all the powers of his 



38 IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

body. Seeing in Him the original principle of the 
natural creation and the living fountain of grace ; 
seeing in Him the final end and purpose of nature, 
of providence and redemption ; the Head over all 
things in Heaven and on earth unto the Church ; 
and believing himself to be by grace a living 
member of Christ, and an heir with Him of the 
ineffable glory which He had with the Father 
before the world was ; he was moved from within, 
as by the spontaneous impulses of his being, not 
only to acknowledge the supreme authority and 
obey the commandments of Christ, but to live unto 
Him with rejoicing ; to think and study in His 
service ; to write and preach in His service ; to 
labor and toil, to deny himself and endure in 
His service ; concerned chiefly that the glorious 
Kingdom of the Father might come with new 
power, and that he might be faithful to his Lord 
and Master unto the end. 

Paradoxical as it may sound, yet it is but the 
simple truth to say, that Dr. Harbaugh had but 
little, or no concern about his personal salvation. 
He took God at His word. He believed Christ and 
His salvation to be sealed to Him in the sacra- 
mental acts of God ; and he believed this so firmly 
that the dark shadows of doubt or fear rarely, if 
ever, disturbed his peace. His was the objective 
assurance of salvation. He did not look into him- 
self for the evidence of forgiveness. He did not 



IN MKMORIAM. 



39 



analyze his spiritual feelings to find out whether he 
was a Christian, just as he did not analyze his nat- 
ural feelings to find out whether he was a man. 
To him one process was as vain as the other. But 
relying on the word and sacramental acts of Jesus 
Christ, who can neither lie nor deceive, he felt him- 
self standing as on an immovable rock, and he looked 
forward to his resurrection from the dead and his 
ultimate glorification in heaven as certain and nec- 
essary facts, rejoicing in hope with unspeakable joy. 
As the objective truth determined the nature of 
his personal piety, so did it exert a determining in- 
fluence on his official character and conduct as a 
Christian Minister. The distinguishing trait of 
his ministerial character may be expressed by say- 
ing that he magnified his office. As the Church, 
according to his view, was a present reality, a living 
constitution in whose veins flowed the very life of 
the God-Man, he held that in the act of ordination 
a man becomes an office-bearer in this spiritual 
kingdom, invested with supernatural authority and 
power. The minister represents and perpetuates 
the three- fold office of Christ in the Church for the 
salvation of man. As Christ is the chief Prophet, 
the minister teaches in His Name the truth as it is 
in Christ. As Christ is the great High Priest who 
offered Himself on the cross an all-sufficient sacri- 
fice for the sin of the world, the minister proclaims 
and dispenses the perennial virtue of this one all 



4Q 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



sufficient sacrifice. As Christ is the only true King, 
the minister rules by His authority and according 
to His will in the Church, guiding, protecting, and 
defending, as the rightful under-shepherd, the flock 
entrusted to his supervision. 

It was in this sense that Dr. Harbaugh believed 
himself to be a minister of Jesus Christ. Nor did 
he suppose that the office of the ministry, being 
representative of Christ, detracted from the su- 
preme dignity of the divine Head. As the min- 
ister mediates the Word of Christ in teaching, and 
the law as the will of Christ in governing, so he 
believed that the minister mediates the virtue of the 
sacrifice and resurrection of Christ in performing 
priestly functions. To represent and act for Christ 
as the only High Priest did not involve a denial of 
His supremacy and all-sufficiency, any more than it 
did to represent and act for Christ as the Chief 
Prophet and Teacher. On the contrary, he believed 
that in magnifying his office as a minister in obedi- 
ence to divine authority, he exalted the dignity and 
intensified the sense of the reality of the original 
office as belonging exclusively to Christ Himself. 
For in exalting the ministerial office to its true 
relation to Christ, he brought nigh to the sense 
and consciousness of men, the living, ever-present 
virtue and the peculiar glory of Jesus Christ as the 
only Prophet, Priest and King. 



IN MKMORIAM. 



41 



Of this view of his office received from Christ by 
the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, the 
spontaneous effect was to humble him in view of 
his great unworthiness ; to fill his heart with joy 
that he had been counted worthy to be entrusted 
with the mysteries of grace ; to inspire him with 
ardent and unquenchable zeal for his Master and 
his Master's kingdom ; to impart strength, comfort 
and hope amid his weaknesses and his numerous 
discouragements ; to make him fearless, bold, and 
uncompromising in the face of subtle wickedness 
and hydra-headed errors that arose in church and 
state, in philosophy, theology, and practical life ; to 
impel him to persevering activity in the service of 
the church, and sustain him under the various ex- 
hausting labors which he performed with unwaver- 
ing resolution from month to month, from year to 
year, in the spirit of genuine self-denial and self- 
sacrifice, for the good of men and the glory of 
Christ ; and to keep his mind calm, composed, 
cheerful, in the midst of the vicissitudes, bereave- 
ments, sorrows, and conflicts of his ministerial 
career. 

The want of time does not permit me to enter 
into details, else I might speak of his implicit faith 
in Holy Scripture as the inspired word of God ; of 
his ability and freshness as a preacher ; of his 
fidelity to Christ in expounding His word without 
fear or favor ; of his fidelity to the people in pro- 



4 2 



IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



claiming the entire Gospel in all its fulness ; of 
his sympathy as a pastor with the poor and the 
sick, the widow and the orphan ; of his diligence 
in the catechization of the children and youth of 
the church ; of his lively and constant interest in 
young men, and his unwearying efforts to arouse 
them to high resolves and stimulate them to noble 
endeavors ; of his devotion to the churchly idea of 
parochial schools ; of his steady zeal in supporting 
all the educational and missionary operations of 
the church ; of his profound sense of the solemn 
importance of higher institutions of learning in 
their relation to the progress of the Gospel ; and 
of his earnestness, tact, wisdom and modesty as a 
conscientious leader on the floor of classis and 
synod. 

But waiving the consideration of these particu- 
lars, I pass on to notice the position and character 
of Dr. Harbaugh as a Protestant theologian of the 
Reformed Church. Viewing him under this aspect, 
we come to the highest point of the development of 
his spiritual life. His genius and energy, his faith 
and piety, his intellectual and practical activity ; — 
all meet and culminate in the Christian theologian. 

Awakened to a clear perception of the rational- 
istic and disintegrating tendencies of modern Pro- 
testantism by the severe criticisms of his revered 
teachers, the Rev. Drs. Nevin and Schaff, and led 
by them, by organic methods of thought, into the 



IN MBMORIAM. 



43 



study of the theology of the Reformation in its 
relation to the theology of the post-Apostolic and 
Nicene periods of history, Dr. Harbaugh came to a 
definite apprehension of the truth that the Apostles' 
Creed, next to the written Word, stands as the 
principal rule of faith, possessing fundamental 
significance for Protestantism, for the Reformed 
Church, and for all subsequent periods of history. 
In the light of living faith in Christ, he studied 
with a due measure of independence the entire 
range of Protestant theolog}r, Lutheran and 
Reformed. Passing beyond the Reformation 
into those fruitful periods which solved many 
fundamental problems of the Christian faith, 
he studied the issues involved in the great 
controversies of the early church ; he repro- 
duced the ruling primitive ideas concerning the 
nature of Christianity and the nature of the church, 
concerning the ministry, church government, wor- 
ship, and the sacraments ; then, qualified by such 
knowledge and sustained by a candid exegesis, he, 
in the exercise of his own judgment, but with a 
childlike spirit, studied the Scriptures of the Old 
and New r Testament. Standing on this scriptural 
and catholic ground, he followed the developments 
of the medieval age, and judged of the errors in 
doctrine and corruptions in practice in the Roman 
Church. 



44 



UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



As the result of these extensive and faithful 
historical studies, conducted under the leadership 
of those whom he always loved to acknowledge as 
guides, yet conducted in his own way with a free 
and independent mind, Dr. Harbaugh became a 
broad, manifold theologian, uniting in an organic 
whole what to his opponents appeared to be antag- 
onistic elements. For him the governing force of 
sound theological thought was the objective order 
of truth embodied in the Apostles' Creed, of which 
the central, animating principle was the Person of 
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. Studying 
the written Word from this point of view, his 
theology became catholic as well as Scriptural, 
Protestant no less than catholic, and Reformed as 
well as Protestant ; and it stood opposed alike to 
infidelity and to false Biblicism, to Romanism and 
Gnosticism, to one-sided metaphysical Calvinism 
and humanitarian Arminianism, to lifeless orthodoxy 
and arrogant rationalism, to a false unionism and 
narrow bigotry, to cold formalism and self-inflated 
fanaticism. 

The theology of Dr. Harbaugh was therefore pri- 
marily catholic, then Protestant, and finally Re- 
formed. The Heidelberg Catechism he subordi- 
nated, as it subordinates itself, to the Apostles' 
Creed, and the Apostles' Creed to Holy Scrip- 
ture, Scripture being held to be the ultimate critical 
standard and the only norm of faith. But he 



IN MEMORIAM. 45 

studied Scripture in the light of the Creed, and the 
Creed by the aid of the Catechism as well as in the 
light of history. With him, the chief object of 
interest and devotion was the Church catholic, the 
one mystical body of Christ. To promote her pros- 
perity and glory he lived and labored. No other 
object on earth did he consider worthy of his time 
and services. He was a Protestant because he be- 
lieved Protestantism to be a necessary and valid 
development of the original life of Catholicism ; and 
he was Reformed because the Reformed Church, as 
regards her theology, government, and type of 
piety, was the better side of Protestantism. Under 
this view we may call him a Reformed theologian 
of the Church catholic ; or a firm opponent of 
Romanism on the basis of the Reformed catholic 
faith. 

The natural result of such a comprehensive yet 
definite theology was illustrated in the life of Dr. 
Harbaugh. His opponents may draw the infer- 
ence, and try to do so logically, that he did not 
love the Reformed Church and was not devoted to 
her prosperity as a distinct branch of the Protes- 
tant Reformation. But no inference could be less 
logical and less in accordance with fact. Whilst 
the church universal was to him the chief object of 
interest and devotion, he believed, as a legitimate 
consequence of his Protestant faith in catholic 
truth, that he could accomplish this chief end most 



46 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

effectually by cultivating the original life and faith 
of the church after the type and in the communion 
of Protestantism. As a legitimate consequence of 
his Reformed faith in Protestant truth, he believed 
also that he could promote the interests of Christ's 
Kingdom in the sphere of Protestantism most 
effectually by living in the communion of the 
Reformed Church, and devoting all his energies of 
body and mind to her progress and triumphs. 
Nay more. His life was even more specific still. 
He could not live for the Church by dissipating 
his energies among vague generalities. He could 
do so only by consecrating himself, his ministry, 
his studies, his warm heart, to the church of his 
American German fathers. 

Accordingly Dr. Harbaugh was not only Re- 
formed and German Reformed, but also American 
German Reformed. That is, he devoted himself 
specifically to the advancement of theology in the 
German church planted in America by the Re- 
formed fathers. 

His extraordinary activity and numerous labors 
demonstrate the truth of what I have asserted. He 
loved the Heidelberg Catechism. He studied its 
origin, its theology, its history ; he vindicated it 
against false interpretation and unwarrantable op- 
position. He preached series of sermons on it. 
The last work of his life, though not published, is 
a complete commentary on the catechism, contain- 



IN MBMORIAM. 47 

ing the results of his theological investigations 
during the last twenty years of his life. In many 
and various ways, which I have not time to enume- 
rate, he labored to bring this precious formulary of 
faith into honor among ministers and laymen ; to 
disseminate the knowledge of its genius and its 
doctrines among the people, and awaken in the 
mind of the Reformed Church a lively conscious- 
ness of her rich inheritance. Excepting only the 
Rev. Dr. Nevin, no minister of the Reformed 
Church from the pioneer Schlatter down to his 
time, ever worked so steadily and untiringly to- 
wards this noble end, and no one accomplished so 
much. 

Dr. Harbaugh made the history of the church 
both in Europe and America a special subject of 
investigation. He studied the lives of the Re- 
formers. He studied the lives of the American 
Fathers. To gather the requisite material for his 
biographical works, he traveled extensively for 
several years, as his professional duties would per- 
mit, searching for information among piles of old 
letters, in the records of the oldest churches, in con- 
versation with the oldest surviving members of the 
oldest churches, with the descendants of deceased 
clergymen, and among the files of German and 
English newspapers of the last century. To the 
same end he carried on an extensive correspond- 
ence ; besides, he collected all accessible manu- 



48 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

scripts, reports, annals, biographies, and histories 
bearing upon his undertaking. He spared neither 
time, nor labor, nor money in qualifying himself 
for the proper execution of his plans. Then he 
wrote out the Life of Michael Schlatter ; and this 
was followed by The Lives of the Fathers in three 
volumes. Though the books he wrote directly for 
his own church yielded him no pecuniary revenue, 
yet he did not abate his zeal nor relinquish his pur- 
pose. These works were only preparatory to a 
larger and more important work which he intended 
to write, and no doubt would have written, had his 
life been spared, namely, a complete history of the 
German branch of the Reformed Church from its 
origin to the present period. 

Dr. Harbaugh originated the idea of the Ter- 
centenary celebration of 1863. As Chairman of 
the Committee of Arrangements he devised the 
plan of that jubilee ; he superintended all the pre- 
liminary work ; he directed the movement, in the 
midst of all the discouragements arising from the 
prevalence of a gigantic civil war ; and he did the 
work successfully, from the beginning to its trium- 
phant conclusion. Though he received important 
aid and was supported by the active cooperation of 
other members of the committee ; though the 
movement must have been a failure had not other 
distinguished theologians, both in Europe and 
America, sustained it by their contributions, yet 



IN MBMORIAM. 



49 



the fact stands out clearly to view that he inaugu- 
rated the celebration of the Ter-centenary year, 
and that the success of the celebration must in 
the first instance be ascribed mainly to his genius 
and zeal. 

He was also the originator of the Historical 
Society, or one of its principal originators. He 
took a deep interest in its operations from year to 
year, and was one of its most active supporters. 

But I waive any further enumeration of par- 
ticulars. These are only some of the facts which 
demonstrate the earnest spirit with which he 
devoted himself to the practical affairs of the 
Reformed Church. Whilst many other men have 
done good service in this direction, such as 
Schlatter, Hendel, Reily, Mayer, Nevin, and 
Schaflf, yet it is but simple justice to say that, as 
regards direct practical efforts in the interest of the 
German branch of the Reformed Church, Dr. Har- 
baugh distinguished himself as one of the most 
efficient workmen in America. 

We see from this review of his life that there 
was no incompatibility between the catholic the- 
ology of Dr. Harbaugh and living interest in the 
practical affairs of the church. On the contrary, 
it was the old faith that yielded such rich and 
abundant fruit. The original life flowing in the 
arteries of the church catholic circulates in the 
arteries and veins of the entire body, nourishing 



5o 



IvIFB OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 



and animating every member and every organ of 
the body mystical. Any member of this spiritual 
organism can live and flourish only as it appropri- 
ates the vitality of the same original life-blood. 
u As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, " says 
Christ, " except it abide in the vine, no more can 
ye except ye abide in Me. n Just because Dr. Har- 
baugh identified himself with the faith and theology 
of the Reformation and thus stood in unbroken 
continuity with all previous periods of history and 
through them with the life and faith of the Apos- 
tolic College, did he feel the strong pulsation of 
that life in the depths of his soul, and was con- 
strained as by an irresistible impulse to labor for 
the church of his fathers in America with as much 
patience and zeal as if, like Paul, he had received 
an audible call from God to offer himself to Him a 
sacrifice on her altar. 

It would be proper yet to touch upon the charac- 
ter of Dr. Harbaugh as a writer and a poet. But 
as this imperfect portraiture has already exceeded 
its intended limits, I must forbear. 

So fertile and various a genius, so marked a 
character, and so active and successful a life, sug- 
gest important practical reflections. But I shall 
conclude by merely summing up the results of this 
review of our sainted brother's life. 

The central idea may be expressed by saying 
that the spirit and genius of Dr. Harbaugh were 



IN MBMORIAM. 



51 



in the true sense representative. He was a repre- 
sentative personality under every prominent aspect 
of his character. Whether we consider him simply 
as a man, an individual member of the race, or as 
an American German, an individual member of this 
particular nationality, the assertion is valid. He 
was a genuine man, realizing the rich truth of a 
noble manhood. He was a genuine Pennsylvania 
German ; the best type, taken all in all, of German 
life, of German geniality, and German modes of 
thought, that has come to view in our day. 

But the assertion is equally valid under the 
higher aspect of Christian manhood. He realized 
the idea of a Christian. I knew him well for nearly 
thirty years, first as a student at Mercersburg and 
afterwards as a pastor and a professor ; and for the 
last twenty years we have been intimate bosom 
friends. On all occasions he would communicate 
to me with entire freedom his private opinions of 
men and things, and the secret workings of his own 
heart under the severest trials of his life. And I can 
testify without reserve that, whilst he would some- 
times differ with me in judgment, Dr. Harbangh 
was true to Christ as His humble follower, true in 
the full sense of the word. What he appeared to 
be outwardly he was in reality in the secret depths 
of his soul. Scrupulously conscientious in every 
act, the all-controlling principle of his conduct was 
fidelity to Jesus Christ. Christ was the only law of 



52 



IvIFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



his life. And to this law he made all private and 
temporal considerations bend absolutely by the 
power of an unconquerable will. 

No less did he realize the true idea of a minister 
of the Gospel. Studious, faithful, earnest, devout, 
reverential, fearless, yet kind and tender, he conse- 
crated his powers and acquirements to his calling, 
seeking only to fulfil the work of Christ on earth 
to the glory of His name. 

But I may speak more specifically. Harbaugh 
was the true type of a German Reformed minister. 
The rare qualities of mind and heart with which 
he was endowed were not diverted from his legiti- 
mate calling and frittered away on outside popular 
enterprises and schemes, but were set apart sacredly 
to the single purpose of building up the Church of 
Christ in the faith of the Heidelberg Catechism, 
and among the people of American German nation- 
ality. 

These particulars I sum up by saying that he 
was a representative man in the sphere of Christo- 
logical theology. He realized the idea of a theo- 
logian of the German branch of the Reformed 
Church. Rooted in the original life of the church 
catholic, like the Catechism in the Apostles' Creed, 
he held the positive truth of all ages in the specific 
form begotten by the Reformed Confessions. This 
truth he held in its negative relations to divergent 
tendencies of Christian faith, revering what was 



IN MEMORIAM. 



53 



good and Scriptural in the ecclesiastical organiza- 
tions to which he did not adhere, and exposing 
what he believed to be evil or false in the Com- 
munion in which he lived. Whilst some men are 
distinguished mainly for profound thought, others 
for practical judgment and extraordinary activity, 
he united both elements of character, devoting 
himself with equal freedom to the science of Chris- 
tian theology and to the details of practical Chris- 
tian life. The union of these opposite qualities 
constitute Dr. Harbaugh a model theologian. 
Among all the disciples of his distinguished 
teacher, no one grasped, illustrated, and developed 
the ruling ideas of his philosophical and theolog- 
ical thinking so well and so fully as did he. 

In virtue of this extraordinary combination of 
manifold qualities, natural and moral, which raised 
him above the common level of men, of Christians, 
and of ministers, Dr. Harbaugh was, by universal 
consent, a leader and a standard bearer. As such 
he stood forth prominently in the Reformed Church, 
and he wielded an influence, mighty and permanent 
for good, on the rostrum, in the pulpit, on the floor 
of classis and synod, through the medium of the 
press, and far and wide among all classes of the 
people. 

But it has pleased an all-wise Providence to call 
him hence. Just when he had reached the meridian 
of life ; when his intellect and his scholarship were 



54 



IvlFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



approaching maturity ; just when the conflict be- 
tween faith and all the insidious forms of unbelief 
was waxing more violent ; just when, according to 
our narrow judgment, his life and labors were most 
necessary and important, the voice of God bids him 
lay down the weapons of spiritual warfare, and 
enter into rest. At such an hour as we thought 
not, his lips are sealed in death ; and we awake to 
a sense of great and irreparable loss. Our beloved 
brother, our friend, our co-worker is no more. 
A burning and a shining light has been extin- 
guished. So we say ; but we do not yet feel the 
full force of our loss. The painful sense of be- 
reavement will come as occasions arise when his 
presence is needed. Our hearts are sad and de- 
pressed ; but we acquiesce in the dispensations of 
the divine will ; for God deals with us both in wis- 
dom and love. Dr. Harbaugh has entered into his 
reward among the sainted dead ; he is verifying the 
hope of heavenly recognition ; and is enjoying the 
blessedness of the Home which he saw in the dis- 
tance by faith. He has gained infinitely more than 
we have lost. 

We who remain are still in the midst of the 
great conflict, and follow after in hope. His noble 
example of faith and activity, of earnestness and 
burning zeal, is the rich legacy which he has 
bequeathed to us. His influence still lives. Though 
dead, he yet speaketh. 



IN MBMORIAM. 



55 



Let us revere his memory. Let us cherish and 
perpetuate among us his apostolic spirit. Let us 
imitate his example of activity, of zeal for the honor 
of Jesus Christ, and of consecration to the Church 
of the living God, which is the pillar and ground 
of the Truth. 

E. V. Gerhart. 
Lancaster, Pa, , March 2d, 1868. 



HYMNS AND POEMS. 



By Henry Harbaugh. 

5ESUS, I live to Thee, 
The loveliest and best ; 
My life in Thee, Thy life in me, 
In Thy blest love I rest. 

Jesus, I die to Thee, 

Whenever death shall come ; 
To die in Thee is life to me, 

In my eternal home. 

Whether to live or die, 
I know not which is best ; 

To live in Thee is bliss to me, 
To die is endless rest. 

Irving or dying, Lord, 
I ask but to be Thine ; 

My life in Thee, Thy life in me, 
Makes heav'n forever mine. 



5BSUS, my Shepherd, let me share 
Thy guiding hand, Thy tender care ; 
And let me ever find in Thee, 
A refuge and a rest for me. 

Oh, lead me ever by Thy side, 

Where fields are green, and waters glide ; 

And be Thou still, where'er I be, 

A refuge and a rest for me. 



5 8 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

While I this barren desert tread, 
Feed thou my soul on heavenly bread ; 
'Mid foes and fears Thee may I see, 
A refuge and a rest for me. 

Anoint me with Thy gladdening grace, 
To cheer me in the heavenly race ; 
Cause all my gloomy doubts to flee, 
And make my spirit rest in Thee. 

When death shall end this mortal strife, 
Bring me through death to endless life ; 
Then, face to face, beholding Thee, 
My refuge and my rest shall be. 



3ESUS, to Thy cross I hasten, 
In all weariness my home ; 
Let Thy dying love come o'er me — 
Light and covert in the gloom : 

Saviour, hide me, 
Till the hour of gloom is o'er. 

Where life's tempests dark are rolling 
Fearful shadows o'er my way ; 

Let firm faith in Thee sustain me, 
Every rising fear allay : 

Hide, oh ! hide me, 
Hide me till the storm is o'er. 

When stern death at last shall lead me 
Through the dark and lonely vale ; 

Let Thy hope uphold and cheer me, 
Though my flesh and heart should fail. 

Safely hide me 
With Thyself forevermore. 



HYMNS AND POEMS. 

THE MYSTIC WEAVER* 

HT his loom the weaver sitting 
Throws his shuttle to and fro ; 

Foot and treadle, 

Hands and pedal, 

Upward, downward, 

Hither, thither, 
How the weaver makes them go ! 
As the weaver wills they go. 
Up and down the warp is plying, 
And across the woof is flying ; 

What a rattling, 

What a battling, 

What a shuffling, 

What a scuffling, 
As the weaver makes his shuttle, 
Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. 

Threads in single, 
Threads in double ; 

How they mingle, 
What a trouble ! 

Every color — 
What profusion ! 

Every motion — 
W 7 hat confusion ! 
Whilst the warp and woof are mingling, 
Signal bells above are jingling, 
Telling how each figure ranges, 
Telling when the color changes, 
As the weaver makes his shuttle 
Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. 

II. 

At his loom the weaver sitting, 

Throws his shuttle to and fro ; 
'Mid the noise and wild confusion, 



59 



60 LIFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

Well the weaver seems to know, 
As he makes his shuttle go, 
What each motion — 
And commotion, 
What each fusion — 
And confusion, 
In the grand result will show : 

Weaving daily, 

Singing gaily, 

As he makes his busy shuttle, 

Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. 

III. 

At his loom the weaver sitting 

Throws his shuttle to and fro ; 
See you not how shape and order 
From the wild confusion grow, 
As he makes his shuttle go ? 
As the warp and woof diminish, 
Grows behind the beauteous finish : 
Tufted plaidings, 
Shapes and shadings ; 
All the mystery 
Now in history ; 
And we see the reason subtle 
Why the weaver makes his shuttle, 
Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. 

IV. 

See the Mystic Weaver sitting 
High in heaven — His loom below. 
Up and down the treadles go : 
Takes for warp the world's long ages, 
Takes for woof its kings and sages, 
Takes the nobles and their pages, 
Takes all stations and all stages. 



HYMNS AND POEMS. fa 

Thrones are bobbins in His shuttle ; 
Armies make them scud and scuttle. 
Woof into the warp must flow ; 
Up and down the nations go ; 
As the Weaver wills they go. 
Men are sparring, 
Powers are jarring, 
Upward, downward, 
Hither, thither, 
See how strange the nations go, 
Just like puppets in a show. 
Up and down the warp is plying, 
And across the woof is flying, 
What a rattling, 
What a battling, 
What a shuffling, 
What a scuffling, 
As the Weaver makes His shuttle, 
Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. 

V. 

Calmly see the Mystic Weaver 

Throw His shuttle to and fro ; 
'Mid the noise and wild confusion, 
Well the Weaver seems to know 
What each motion — 
And commotion, 
What each fusion — 
And confusion, 
In the grand result will show, 
As the nations, 
Kings and stations, 
Upward, downward, 
Hither, thither, 
As in mystic dances, go. 

In the present all is mystery ; 
In the Past 'tis beauteous History. 
O'er the mixing and the mingling, 



62 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

How the signal bells are jingling ! 
See you not the Weaver leaving 
Finished work behind in weaving ? 

See you not the reason subtle — 
As the warp and woof diminish, 
Changing into beauteous finish — 
Why the Weaver makes His shuttle, 
Hither, thither, scud and scuttle ? 

VI. 
Glorious wonder ! What a weaving ! 
To the dull beyond believing ! 

Such no fabled ages know. 
Only faith can see the mystery, 
How, along the aisle of History 

Where the feet of sages go, 
Liveliest to the purest eyes, 
Grand the mystic tapet lies ! 
Soft and smooth and even-spreading, 
As if made for angels' treading ; 
Tufted circles touching ever, 
Inwrought beauties fading never ; 
Every figure has its plaidings, 
Brighter form and softer shadings ; 
Each illumined — what a riddle ! — 
From a Cross that gems the middle. 
'Tis a saying — some reject it — 
That its light is all reflected ; 
That the tapet's hues are given 
By a Sun that shines in Heaven ! 
'Tis believed, by all believing, 
That great God Himself is weaving ! 
Bringing out the world's dark mystery 
In the light of faith and History ; 
And as warp and woof diminish 
Comes the grand and glorious finish — 
When begin the golden ages, 
Long foretold by seers and sages. 



HYMNS AND POKMS. 63 

HEEMWEH, 

♦If CH wees net was die Ursach is — 
■■ Wees net, warum ich's dhu : 
'N jedes Johr mach ich der Weg 

Der alte Heemet zu ; 
Hab weiter nix zu suche dort — 

Kee' Brbschaft un kee' Geld ; 
Un doch treibt mich des Heemgefiehl 

So schtark wie alle Welt ; 
Nor'd sehtart ich ewe ab un geh, 

Wie owe schun gemeldt. 

Wie nacher dass ich kumm zum Ziel, 

Wie schtarker will ich geh, 
For eppes in mei'm Herz werd letz 

Un dhut m'r kreislich weh. 
Der letschte Hiwel schpring ich nuf , 

Un ep ich drowe bin, 
Schtreck ich mich uf so hoch ich kann 

Un guk mit Luschte hin ; 
Ich seh's alt Schtee'haus dorch die Beem, 

Un wott ich war schun drin. 

Guk, wie der Kicheschornschtee' schmokt — 

Wie oft hab ich sell g'seh', 
Wann ich draus in de Felder war, 

'N Buwele jung un klee'. 
0, sehntscht die Fenschterscheiwe dort? 

Sie guk'n roth wie Blut ; 
Hab aft cunsiddert, doch net g'wisst, 

Dass sell die Sunn so dhut. 
Ja, manches wees 'n Kind noch net — 

Wann's dhet, war's ah net gut ! 

Wie gleich ich selle Babble Beem, 

Sie schtehn wie Brieder dar ; 
Un uf 'm Gippel — g'wiss ich leb ! 

Hockt alleweil 'n Schtaar ! 



64 MFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

'S Gippel biegt sich — guk, wie's gaunscht — 

'R hebt sich awer fescht ; 
Ich seh sei' rothe Fliegle plehn, 

Wann er sei ? Feddere wescht ; 
Will wette, dass sei' Fraale hot 

Uf sellem Baam 'n Nescht ! 

0, es gedenkt m'r noch gans gut, 

Wo selle werri Beem 
Net greeser als 'n Welschkornschtock 

Gebrocot sin worre heem. 
Die Mammi war an's Grandad's g'west, 

Dort ware Beem wie die ; 
Drei Wipplein hot sie mitgebrocht, 

Un g'sa't : ,,Dort blanscht sie hie." 
M'r hen's gedhu' — un glaabscht du's nau — 

Dort selli Beem sin sie ! 

Guk ! werklich, ich bin schier am Haus ! — 

Wie schnell geht doch die Zeit ! 
Wann m'r so in Gedanke geht, 

So wees m'r net wie weit. 
Dort is d'r Schap, die Welschkornkrip, 

Die Seiderpress dort draus ; 
Dort is die Scheier, un dort die Schpring — 

Frisch quellt des Wasser raus ; 
Un guk ! die sehm alt Klapbord-Fens, 

Un's Dheerle vor'm Haus. 

Alles is schtill— sie wisse net, 

Dass epper fremmes kummt. 
Ich denk, der alte Watsch is dodt, 

Sunscht war er raus gedschumpt ; 
For er hot als verschinnert g'brillt 

Wann er hot 's Dheerle g'heert ; 
Es war de Traw'lers kreislich bang, 

Sie werre gans verzehrt : 
Kee' G'fohr— er hot paar Mol gegauzt, 

Nor'd is er umgekehrt. 



HYMNS AND POEMS. 65 

Alles is schtill — die Dheer is zu ! 

Ich schteh, besinne mich ! 
Bs rappelt doch en wenig nau 

Dort hinne in der Kich. 
Ich geh net nei — ich kann noch net ! 

Mei' Herz fiehlt schwer un krank ; 
Ich geh 'n wenig uf die Bortsch, 

Un hock mich uf die Bank ; 
Bs seht mich niemand, wann ich heil, 

Hinner der Drauwerank ! 

Zwee Blatz sin do uf dare Bortsch, 

Die halt ich hoch in Acht, 
Bis meines Lebens Sonn versinkt 

In schtiller Dodtes-Nacht ! 
Wo ich vum alte Vaterhaus 

'S erscht mol bin gange fort, 
Schtand mei' Mammi weinend da, 

An sellem Rigel dort ; 
Un nix is mir so heilig nau 

Als grade seller Ort. 

Ich kanu se heit noch sehne schteh, 

Ihr Schnuppduch in d'r Hand ; 
Die Backe roth, die Aage nass — 

O, wie sie doch do schtand ! 
Dort gab ich ihr mei' Farewell, 

Ich weinte als ich's gab, 
'S war's letschte Mol in dare Welt, 

Dass ich's ihr gewe hab ! 
Befor ich widder kumme bin 

War sie in ihrem Grab ! 

Nau, wann ich an mei' Mammi denk, 

Un meen, ich dhet se seh, 
So schteht sie an dem Rigel dort 

Un weint, weil ich wek geh ! 
Ich seh sie net im Schockelschtuhl ! 

Net an keem annere Ort ; 



66 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Ich denk net an sie als im Grab : 

Juscht an dem Rigel dort ! 
Dort schteht sie immer vor mei'm Herz 

Un weint noch liebreich fort ! 

Was macht's dass ich so dort hi' guk, 

An sell End vnn der Bank ! 
Weescht du's? Mei' Herz is noch net dodt, 

Ich wees es, Gott sei Dank ! 
Wie manchmal sass mei Dady dort, 

Am Summer-Nochmiddag, 
Die Hande uf der Schoos gekreizt, 

Sei Schtock bei Seite lag. 
Was hot er dort im Schtille g'denkt? 

Wer mecht es wisse — sag ? 

V'rleicht is es 'n Kindheets-Draam, 

Dass ihn so sanft bewegt ; 
Oder is er 'n Jingling jetz, 

Der scheene Plane legt ! 
Er hebt sei' Aage uf juscht nau 

Un gukt weit iwer's Feld ; 
Er seht v'rleicht d'r Kerchhof dort, 

Der schun die Mammi helt ! 
Er sehnt v'rleicht nooch seiner Ruh 

Dort in der bessere Welt ! 

Ich wees net, soil ich nei' in's Haus, 

Ich zitter an d'r Dheer ! 
Es is wol alles voll inseid, 

Un doch is alles leer ! 
'S is net men heem, wie's eemol war, 

Un kann's ah nimme sei ; 
Was naus mit unsere Eltere geht 

Kummt ewig nimme nei' ! 
Die Freide hot der Dodt gearnt, 

Das Trauerdheel is mei' ! 



HYMNS AND POEMS. 67 

So geht's in dare rauhe Welt, 

Wo alles muss vergeh ! 
Ja, in der alte Heemet gar 

Fiehlt m'r sich all allee' ! 
O, wann's net vor der Himmel war, 

Mit seiner scheene Ruh, 
Dann war m'r's do schnn lang verleedt, 

Ich wisst net, was ze dhu. 
Doch HofTnung leichtet meinen Weg 

Der ew'gen Heernet zu. 

Dort is 'n schee', schee' Vaterhaus, 

Dort geht m'r nimmeh fort ; 
Ks weint kee' guti Mammi meh' 

In sellem Freideort. 
Kee' Dady such meh' fer 'n Grab, 

Wo, was er lieb hat, liegt ! 
Sell is kee' Blendwelt wie die, 

Wo alle Luscht betriegt ; 
Dort hat das I^ewe ewiglich 

Iwer der Dodt gesiegt. 

Dort find m'r, was m'r do verliert, 

Un b' halt's in Kwigkeit ; 
Dort lewe unsre Dodte all. 

In Licht un ew'ger Freid ! 
Wie oft, wann ich in Druwel bin, 

Denk ich an selli Ruh, 
Un wott, wann's nor Gott's Wille war, 

Ich ging ihr schneller zu ; 
Doch wart ich bis mei' Schtindle schlagt, 

Nor'd sag ich — Welt, adju ! 



68 WFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

DAS ALT SCHULHAUS AN DER KRICK, 

MBIT is 's 'xactly zwansig Johr, 
Dass ich bin owwe naus ; 
Nau bin ich widder lewig z'rick 
Un Schteh am Schulhaus an d'r Krick, 
Juscht neekscht an's Dady's Haus. 

Ich bin in hunnert Heiser g'west, 

Van Marbelstree' un Brick, 
Un alles was sie hen, die Leit, 
Dhet ich verschwappe eenig Zeit 

For's Schulhaus an der Krick. 

Wer mied deheem is, un will fort, 

So loss ihn numme geh' — 
Ich sag ihm awwer vorne naus 
Ks is all Humbuk owwe draus, 

Un er werd's selwert seh' ! 

Ich bin draus rum in alle Eck', 

M'r macht's jo ewwe so ; 
Hab awwer noch in keener Schtadt 
Uf e'mol so viel Freed gehat 

Wie in dem Schulhaus do. 

Wie heemelt mich do alles a' ! 

Ich schteh, un denk, un guck ; 
Un was ich schier vergesse hab, 
Kummt widder z'rick wie aus seim Grab, 

Un schteht do wie en Schpuck ! 

Des Krickle schpielt verbei wie's hot, 
Wo ich noch g'schpielt liab dra' ; 
Un unner selle Hollerbisch 
Do schpiele noch die kleene Fisch, 
So schmart wie selli Zeit. 



HYMNS AND POEMS. 69 

Der Weisseech schteht noch an der Dhier — 

Macht Sch at te iwwer's Dach : 
Die Drauwerank is ah noch grie' — 
Un's Amschel-Nescht — guk juscht mol hi' — 

O was is dess en Sach ! 

Die Schwalme schkippe iwwer's Feld, 

Die vedderscht is die bescht ! 
Un sehnscht du dort am Giebeleck 
'N Haus vun Schtopple un vun Dreck? 

Sell is en Schwalme-Nescht. 

Die Junge leie allweil sch till, 

Un schlofe alle fescht. 
Ward bis die Alte kriege Werm 
No'd herscht du awwer gross Gelerm — 

Vun Meiler in dem Nescht ! 

Ja, alles dess is noch wie's war 

Wo ich noch war en Buh ; 
Doch anner Dings sin net neh so, 
For alles dhut sich ennere do 

Wie ich mich ennere dhu. 

Ich schteh wie Ossian in seim Dhal 

Un seh in's Wolkeschpiel, — 
Bewegt mit Freed un Trauer — ach ! 
Die Dhrene kumme wann ich lach ! 

Kanscht denke wie ich flehl. 

Do bin ich gange in die Schul, 

Wo ich noch war gans klee' ; 
Dort war der Meeschter in seim Schtuhl, 
Dort war sei' Wip, un dort sei' Ruhl, — 

Ich kann's noch Alles seh'. 

Die lange Desks rings an der Wand — 

Die grose Schieler drum ; 
Uf eener Seit die grose Mad, 
Un dort die Buwe net so bleed — 

Guk, wie sie piepe rum ! 



7o 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Der Meeschter watscht sie awwer scharf , 

Sie gewe besser acht : 
Dort seller, wo lofletters schreibt 
Un seller, wo sei Schpuchte treibt, 

Un seller Kerl wo lacht. 

Die Grose un die Kleene all 

Sin unner eener Ruhl ; 
Un dess is juscht der rechte Weg : 
Wer Ruhls verbrecht, der nemmt die Schleg, 

Odder verlosst die Schul. 

Inwennig, um der Offe rum 

Hocke die kleene Tschaps, 
Sie lerne artlich hart, verschteh, 
Un wer net wees sei' A B C — 

Sei' Ohre kriege Rapps. 

S'is hart zu hocke uf so Benk — 

Die Fiess, die schteh'n net uf — 
En Mancher kriegt en weher Rick 
In sellem Schulhaus an der Krick, 
Un fiehlt gans krenklich druff. 

Die artne Drep ! dort hocke se 

In Misserie — juscht denk ! 
Es is kee' Wunner — netnm mei Wort — 
Dass se so wenig lerne dort, 

Uf selle hoche Benk. 

Mit all was mer so sage kann, 

War's doch en guti Schul ; 
Du finscht keen Meeschter so, geh, such — 
Der seifre kann darch's ganze Buch, 

Un schkippt keen eeni Ruhl. 

Bees war er ! ja, dess muss ich g'schteh ; 

G'wippt hot er nuniine zu ; 
Gar kreislich gute Ruhls gelehrt 
Un wer Schleg kriegt hot, hen se g'heert, 

Hot eppes letz gedhu'. 



HYMNS AND POEMS. 

Warm's Dinner war, un Schul war aus, 

Nor'd hot mer gut gefiehlt ; 
Dheel is 'n Balle-Gehm gelunge, 
Dheel hen mitnanner Rehs g'schprunge, 

Un Dheel hen Sold'scher g'schpielt. 

Die grose Mad hen ausgekehrt — 

Die Buwe nausgeschtaabt ! 
Zu helfe hen en Dheel pretend, 
Der Meeschter hot sie naus gesendt : 

Die Ruhls hen's net erlaabt. 

Die kleene Mad hen Ring geschpielt 

Uf sellem Waasum da ; 
Wann grose Mad sin in der Ring — 
'S is doch en wunnervolles Ding ! — 

Sin grose Buwe ah ! 

Die Grose hen die Grose 'taggt, 

Die Kleene all vermisst ! 
Wie sin se g'schprunge ab un uf, 
Wer g'wunne hot, verloss dich druf, 

Hot dichdiglich gekisst ! 

Am Chrischdag war die rechte Zeit — 

Oh wann ich juscht dra' denk ! 
Der Meeschter hen mer naus geschperrt, 
Die Dhier un Fenschter fescht gebarrt — 

,,Nau, Meeschter, en Geschenk!" 

Nor'd hot er awwer hart browirt, 

Mit Fors zu kumme nei' ; 
Un mir hen, wie er hot gekloppt, 
'N Schreiwes unne naus geschtoppt, 

,,Wann's seinscht, dann kannscht du rei !" 

Nau hot der Meeschter raus gelanst, 

Gar kreislich schiepisch 'gukt ! 
Bppel un Keschte un noch meh', 
'S war juschtement in fact recht schee', 

Mir hen's mit Iyuschte g'schluckt. 



71 



72 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Oh wu sin nau die Schieler all, 

Wo hawe do gelernt ? 
'N Dheel sin weit ewek gereest, 
Vnm Unglick uf tin ab gedscheest, 

Dheel hot der Dodt gearnt ! 

Mei Herz schwellt mit Gedanke uf , 

Bis ich schier gar verschtick ! 
Kennt heile, 's dhut m'r nau so leed, 
Un doch gebt's mir die greeschte Freed, 
Dess Schulhaus an der Krick. 

Gut bei ! alt Schulhaus — Echo kreischt 

Gut bei ! Gut bei ! zurick ; 
O Schulhaus ! Schulhaus ! muss ich geh', 
Un du schtehscht nor'd do all allee', 

Du Schulhaus an der Krick ! 

Oh horcht, ihr Leit, wu nooch mir lebt, 
Ich schreib eich noch des Schtick : 
Ich warn eich, droh eich, gebt doch Acht, 
Un nemmt uf immer gut enacht, 
Des Schulhaus an der Krick ! 



I. ANCESTRY. 




HAME on him who will know nothing of 
his parentage," exclaimed Dr. Henry 
Harbaugh from his pulpit at Lancaster, 
Pa., in 1851. " Shame on him who dis- 
owns his ancestry ; he reproaches the 
blood in his own veins. Both shame and sin on 
him who is ashamed of his countrymen ; he brands 
himself as a hypocrite in the eyes of all nations ! 
Yet there are those still who seem to think that he 
who speaks German is necessarily ignorant, and 
that he who understands two languages knows less 
than he who knows but one! This lowest of all 
prejudices is certainly held with consistency by the 
descendants of those who in 1727 remonstrated with 
Governor Keith against the naturalization of the 
Swiss and German settlers on the Pequea, * urging 
among other things against them ( that they had 
resolved to speak their own langicage ! ! P O jam 
satis" 



* Creek flowing through I^ancaster County, Pa., into the Susquehanna 
river. 



y 4 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Upon another occasion he wrote : 

"No country lies so near heaven as Switzerland. 
Her eternal Alps are her fit monuments, at once 
the symbols of power and freedom ; while the quiet 
valleys which they shelter and shade, speak to us for- 
ever of peace and blessing/ ' 

It is intended herein to trace briefly the lineage 
of Henry Harbaugh, from the ancestral home in 
Switzerland down to his own life and times, and to 
offer something in support of the proposition that 
his deeply religious and poetic life, if nothing more, 
sprang through the influences of heredity from the 
very heart of the Swiss mountains. 

In the Land Office at Harrisburg, Pa. , there is a 
deed of record in which it appears that in 1739, 
Joost Harbogh was the owner of a tract of land of 
one hundred acres in what is now Berks County, 
three miles above Maxatawny creek. He came from 
Switzerland about the year 1736, and lived on this 
tract for about four years. After this he moved to 
the new settlement of Kreutz creek, west of the 
Susquehanna, where he cleared the land and built 
a substantial log house which was yet standing in 
the year 1836. It was forty feet square and the 
logs were of the choicest timber, all nicely hewn, 
some of them being as much as two feet broad. 
Westward from the site of this old house there is a 
gentle slope downward towards the spring ; directly 



ANCESTRY. 



75 



south of the spring was formerly the garden. Not 
many years ago there still grew some parsnips and 
larkspur along the fence which once bounded the 
old garden plot — the degenerated and lingering 
relics of ornament and use. Their dying and re- 
viving each year seems to be a picture of how mem- 
ory lingers and struggles to keep itself alive around 
the spot to which its fondest associations are bound. 

Numerous German settlements were made on the 
banks of the Kreutz creek as early as 1736. Exiles 
from the Palatinate, they sought a new home where 
they hoped to live in peace ; martyrs to the cause 
of Protestantism, they fled from the cruel religious 
persecutions of France and Germany, and expected 
to find a dwelling place where they could build 
anew their homes and their churches. 

But in the place of receiving them kindly for 
their own sakes as well as for the sake of Him in 
whose cause they had suffered so much, the mag- 
nanimous government of Penn denied them a home 
for a time, and then after relenting so far as to 
allow them to remain, subjected them to great 
annoyances for many years. 

The mode of life and surroundings of these early 
German settlers were truly primitive, simple, and 
severe. Here the young man and wife with a calm 
courage born in part at least of a hope for material 
prosperity, blazed a pathway through the forests 
and braved the dangers of the time. 



7 6 IylFK OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

Upon their arrival from the fatherland the first 
want of these hardy pioneers was to found a home. 
To clear away the forest and erect a good strong 
house of logs was the labor to which they first ad- 
dressed themselves. Their furniture and conveni- 
ences of the household were of a rude sort, and 
their dress was simple, consisting of tow cloth 
almost wholly, until later when wool came to be an 
article obtainable in the markets. But there was a 
long time during which even a mixture of tow and 
wool was regarded as an article of luxury, and for- 
tunate was he who could have it as a means of com- 
fort in the winter months. In all that district 
around Kreutz creek there was neither shoemaker 
nor tanner, and shoes were brought annually from 
Philadelphia to supply the settlers. The mending 
was done by an itinerant cobbler who carried his 
little pack of leather used in the mending, with his 
tools, from one farm house to another. Tailors and 
blacksmiths were also itinerants. The same incon- 
venience attended the introduction of schools. The 
first schoolmaster was known only as " Der Dicke 
(thick) Schulmeister" and it goes without saying 
that he was crude in his art and often mercenary in 
his motives. 

The privileges of the church could only be en- 
joyed by going to Lancaster, where a Reformed 
Church was built as early as 1736. It is said that 
44 ministers from the other side of the river n were 



ANCKSTRY. 77 

wont to come over once or twice a year to baptize 
the children. However, the lot for the Kreutz 
Creek Church was taken up October 27, 1746, and 
there was a church erected soon thereafter. The 
settlers maintained their religion and church serv- 
ices, though at times they were disheartened and 
scattered, only to be brought back again and pro- 
vided with shepherds by such heroic missionaries as 
Zinzendorf, Muhlenberg, and Schlatter. On the 
occasion of celebrating the 115th anniversary of 
the organization of the German Reformed Church 
in the city of Lancaster, October 11 and 12, 1851, 
Dr. Harbaugh, pastor of the church, delivered sev- 
eral historical discourses. Among other things, he 
said : 

" The members of this congregation, from the begin- 
ning, and always, took a deep and active interest in the 
cause of education. Their school house, as they say, 
was i erected almost since the first settlement of the 
town/ It was no doubt built at the same time with 
the church, for in their minds the church and school 
were inseparable. Their ideas of the culture of their 
children was, * from the family into the school, from the 
school into the church, and from the church into 
heaven. ' 

1 ' The first Reformed ministers in this country were 
men of learning,* and knew therefore the value of this 



*The Reverend Jedediah Andrews, a graduate of Harvard College of 
the class of 1695, in a letter dated Philadelphia, 1730, says in evident sur- 



7 8 IvIFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

interest. Their classical learning was a matter of sur- 
prise and wonder to the English divines of this coun- 
try. It has already been shown in this discourse that 
the largest number of the pastors of this congregation 
were men of regular university education. They re- 
garded the business of education as belonging rather to 
the church than to the state ; and hence manifested the 
same zeal for it as they did for any other religious 
duty. Success attended their zeal. It was known that 
the Rev. Michael Schlatter, the first regular missionary 
of the German Reformed Church in this country, had 
as an important part of his mission assigned to him the 
duty of establishing and superintending schools. He 
labored in this cause in Lancaster also. It is said in 
regard to these schools, ' so rapidly indeed had the 
scholars increased, and with so much success were the 
schools conducted, under the united efforts and perse- 
vering industry of the Lutheran and German Re- 
formed congregations that from about the year 1745 to 
1784, they were almost the only schools of character in 
the county, except those at Ephrata and Eititz.' 

" Again it is said in regard to these same Germans ; 
' For their attachment to learning and their untiring 
efforts in the cause of education, they receive but little 
credit, even from those whose acquaintance with the 
facts, independent of their German origin, should 

prise : "There is lately come over a Palatinate candidate of the ministry, 
who having applied to us at the Synod (Scotch Synod) for ordination, 'tis 
left to three ministers to do it. He is an extraordinary person for sense 
and learning. We gave him a question to discuss about Justification and 
he answered it in a whole sheet of paper, in a very notable manner. His 
name is John Peter Miller, and speaks Latin as readily as we do our ver- 
nacular tongue, and so does the other, Dr. Weiss !" Mir able diclu / 



ANCKSTRY. 



79 



prompt them upon all occasions to become their readiest 
defenders. How many schemes for the dissemination 
of knowledge among men have they not successfully 
devised, and other nations, as well as ourselves, as suc- 
cessfully put into operation, without so much as credit- 
ing the source from whence derived ? With no other 
people would it have been attempted, and they have 
submitted to the moral wrong only because they re- 
joiced more in the good that followed to others than in 
the enjoyment of the honor that w r as due to the dis- 
covery for themselves.' 

* l So much we have thought proper to say by way of 
correcting the common slander — is there a softer name ? 
— which it is still fashionable to perpetuate, not only 
among the wise descendants of those who made the 
Blue L,aws and who burnt witches, but among some 
whose grandfathers spake only German." 

The Pennsylvania-German Society, although in 
existence but a few years, has rescued and put in 
form to be preserved, much of the history and liter- 
ature of this sturdy people. The Rev. Paul de 
Schweinitz speaks thus of them : u These early 
emigrants were intensely religious, and their de- 
scendants as a people have remained so. The lan- 
guage they brought with them, which is still used 
in their German churches, testifies to this. The 
German language is peculiarly adapted to the ex- 
pression of religious and spiritual experiences. 
They brought with them to this country their in- 



80 UFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

born love for the masterpieces of musical creation, 
and they have been largely instrumental in intro- 
ducing to the American churches the uplifting 
anthems of Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Haendel, 
Mendelssohn, and others. So difficult and profound 
is the Passion Music of John Sebastian Bach, that 
its production in this country has been attempted 
only twice, I believe. Once in Boston, Mass., and 
the other time with brilliant success in the Penn- 
sylvania-German town of Bethlehem. n 

" The social and religious life among the Ger- 
mans of Pennsylvania and neighboring states, one 
hundred years ago, was peculiar to itself, and its 
history has its own charm, " writes Dr. Harbaugh, 
in his life of Schlatter. U A retiring and rural 
people were our forefathers. Isolated to a great 
extent from others by language, social habits, re- 
ligion, and even the character of their secular pur- 
suits, they dwelt in the fertile and friendly valleys 
of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Vir- 
ginia, ambitious only for the quiet ways of peace 
and love. It cannot be uninteresting even to 
strangers, and certainly not to their own children, 
to be presented with a picture, even though it may 
be very imperfect, of the social and religious 
features of the olden time among the Germans. 
Such a picture must come forward in the life and 
labors of a man like Michael Schlatter, who earn- 



ANCESTRY. 8 1 

estly identified himself with their highest educa- 
tional and religious interests for the space of more 
than forty years, during the most interesting and 
eventful period of our country's civil and ecclesi- 
astical history. 

u A true history of Pennsylvania would be one 
that would cluster not around its civil machinery, 
its council records, its battle fields and forts, its 
public officers and schemes of state policy, but 
one which would thread on its religious history, 
follow its churches as they rose in one valley and 
settlement after another, the pioneerings of its early 
pastors and the general progress of piety and purity 
in its families. There is not a family in the State 
whose history is not prevailingly bound up with its 
venerable churches and well-filled grave yards. 
These were not only the first prominent, sacred, 
and venerated places in the early settlements, but 
have always been the centers to which the deepest 
and most earnest thoughts of men have tended, and 
from which have gone out those moulding influ- 
ences which have made individuals, families, val- 
leys, and the State itself, as wealthy, worthy, and 
peaceful as they are. " 

Tradition says that Yost Harbaugh was a man of 
stout physical frame, energetic spirit and great 
courage — just such a man as would enter upon a 
new settlement and brave the dangers and endure 



82 LIFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

the hardships of a border life.* He was a member 
of the Reformed Church. This is certain from the 
fact that he came from Switzerland, where all are 
confirmed to the church at fourteen years of age. 
Among the records of the Kreutz Creek Church are 
the baptism of children of his sons Yost and John, 
as early as 1759, which was before his death. This 
indicates that he raised his children to the faith and 
worship of the Reformed Church. He helped to 
found the German Reformed Congregation at York, 
Pa., and was a member of it. He aided in build- 
ing the first church there. An old manuscript 
agreement, in which are laid down the principles 
on which the church shall be built, and the rules 
by which the congregation shall be governed, con- 
tains his name signed by himself, under date of 
March 17, 1745. His sons were members at 
Kreutz creek, and the Reformed Church has been 
since the prevailing ecclesiastical connection of 
nearly all the families which have sprung from this 
patriarch. Yost Harbaugh is buried, it is thought, 
in the grave yard at Kreutz creek, though there is 
no stone to mark his grave. There remains on the 
western side of the grave yard a stone which 
marks the grave of one of his daughters who died 
in 1790, and this may be safely taken as designa- 
ting the place of family interment. He died in 

*At this and other places in this chapter, the words of Dr. Harbaugh 
have been freely used, from the Annals of the Harbaugh Family. 



ANCESTRY. 83 

April, 1762. His will, which is a quaint and curi- 
ous document of considerable length, was recorded 
April 27, 1762, in York County. As an expression 
of his intentions it was no doubt satisfactory, but 
the scrivener who drew it evidently had more re- 
gard to the form and letter, than to the spirit of the 
law. In quite a long preamble the testator ac- 
knowledges his gratitude to God. " Being very 
sick and weak in body but perfect of mind and 
memory thanks be given therefore unto god there- 
fore calling unto mind the mortality of my body 
and knowing that it is appointed for all men once 
to Dye, I do mak and ordain this my Last Will and 
Testament." As to his body, he recommends that 
"it be buried in a Christian like and desend maner 
nothing Doubting but at the general Resurrection 
I shal receive the Same again by the mighty pwr 
of god." And touching his worldly estate, he be- 
queaths to his wife, " Twelve Pounds of good and 
lawful money of Pennsylvania & that yearly and 
every year so long as she abids a widow, and she 
shal have a full right to the Spring hous to Live 
thereon or in and to any one of the Cows in the 
stable . . . and a Chist to hir own use and that to 
hir and hir assigns for Ever." And to his ten 
children the estate is 4i Equaly divided Share and 
Shear alike to the ouldest no more than the youngst 
or any of the rest. " There is a memorandum 
marked u Beni" at the end of the will in which the 



84 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

wife is further provided for, "and any of the Ex- 
ecutors if the have any money in hand for any of 
the Legasses if the Can not lend it out as the think 
proper shall not be obliged to pay interess for it. 
This has been forgit to put in the will afore signed 
and sealed. " The paper was first probated before 
one John Adlum, who styles himself u One of His 
Magosty's Justices of the Peace," but the Court 
afterwards decided it to be insufficient and the pro- 
bate was then made before the proper officer. 

This Swiss emigrant, Yost Harbaugh, the pro- 
genitor of the family in America, was twice mar- 
ried, having by his first union six children and by 
his second four. Three of his sons by the first mar- 
riage found their way into the border land of Mary- 
land and Pennsylvania and permanently settled in 
a small valley in Frederick County, Maryland, 
which afterwards came to be known as Harbaugh's 
Valley. No doubt they were attracted there by the 
fact that a Swiss settlement had already been made. 
Perhaps the national instinct of the Swiss to love 
mountainous regions had much to do with it. Swiss 
soldiers have died of homesickness for their native 
Alps, and the hearts of emigrants are ever weary of 
the plains, abiding not until they rest in the shadow 
of a mountain. It is the fortunes of the third son, 
Jacob, with which we shall have to do briefly. He 
was born in Switzerland February 5, 1730, and 
came with his parents to America at the age of six 



ANCKSTRY. 85 

years. When quite a young man he purchased a 
tract of land in Frederick County, Maryland, and 
while yet living with his father, and long before he 
received his u Equal shear and no more," made fre- 
quent trips to the land and worked at the clearing. 
He was married in April, 1761, to Anna Margaretta 
Smith and moved to his new possessions shortly 
thereafter. The names of the several tracts of land 
composing his farm are "Mount Olivet" "Sweet 
Land" and " The Tied Dog" It was surrounded 
by wilderness when he bought it, but he cleared it 
up and afterwards added some acres to the original 
purchase. Game of all kinds was plentiful when 
he moved there, and bear's meat was not an un- 
common article of diet. Nor were they at that 
early time free from danger on account of voracious 
and destructive wild beasts. 

Jacob Harbaugh was tall and rather stout in 
person, though somewhat on the strait order of 
build. His education was limited, but he could 
read, write, and keep his own accounts, and he 
knew well how to handle money affairs. He ruled 
with perfectly undisputed authority in his house 
and family, and his government in that respect 
would be considered far too severe in these days. 
On Sunday all was perfect order about the house. 
He belonged to the German Reformed Church, and 
all of his family who were big enough to go, at- 
tended services, often walking the distance of six 



86 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

miles. The table fare was plain and the furniture 
of the house was as simple and plain as the fare. 
The chairs were homemade, the seats platted with 
broad smooth shaved slips of white oak or hickory, 
while the walls were lined with plain benches. By 
industry and economy Jacob Harbaugh prospered 
from a worldly point of view and in his old age he 
was surrounded by a large amount of property. He 
was able to place each of his sons on a piece of 
land where they might begin the world for them- 
selves. He became quite venerable in appearance 
and patriarchal in his habits in his old age. He 
began to exercise the same authority over his grand- 
children that he had over his own children. Fi- 
nally on the 28th day of April, 1818, he "was 
gathered unto his people" at the ripe age of eighty- 
eight years and three months. He is buried on the 
homestead farm in the family grave yard by the 
side of his good wife, who preceded him March 18, 
1803. Two neat marble slabs with suitable in- 
scriptions mark the graves. Jacob, like his father, 
Yost, had ten children, and his descendants, to- 
gether with those of his brothers, Ludwig and 
George, form a numerous, widely scattered, and 
thoroughly respectable class of citizens. 

Jacob Harbaugh's youngest child, George, was 
imbued with the same spirit of industry and enter- 
prise that characterized his forefathers. He was born 
in the old homestead in the " Valley " March 17, 



ANCESTRY. 87 

1774. In his twenty-sixth year he married Anna 
Snyder, daughter of Jacob Snyder, who lived near 
Boonsboro, Md., and soon after his marriage settled 
in Washington Township, Franklin County, Pa., 
at the foot of South Mountain. There he took up 
a tract of land almost wholly unimproved, the same 
being a part of a tract called the ( i Third Resurvey 
on Sarah's Delight," granted by patent unto Chris- 
topher Shockey by Frederick, then absolute Lord 
and Proprietor of the Province of Maryland, July 
12, 1768. 

A small log house stood opposite the present 
barn in the orchard where he resided for several 
years. The stone house, so frequently and so 
fondly spoken of in Pennsylvania-German poems, 
was built in 1805. The stones for the front were 
hauled from near Leitersburg, a distance of six 
miles, and the capital available for building at the 
time was two hundred dollars. George Harbaugh, 
however, was an industrious man, and required all 
his children to be usefully employed. Like his 
father, Jacob, he was strict in his family, and a life 
long member of the Reformed Church, attending 
worship regularly at Waynesboro. Ministers fre- 
quently enjoyed his home and hospitality, and he 
was especially fond of their company. He was one 
of the founders of the German Reformed Church 
at Waynesboro, and took a prominent part in the 
erection of the church, which was built of hewn 



88 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

logs. The inside work was wrought out by the 
carpenters in his barn and hauled to town by his 
teams. He was also, in his old age, one of the 
founders of the church near his own home ; giving 
the ground for the site and the grave yard, and 
taking an active part in its erection. He was during 
many years an elder in the church, and in his last 
years especially attended diligently to the duties of 
that office. He was strictly temperate in his habits 
and moderate in his views. He was averse to all 
excitement in politics, wild speculation in business, 
and fanaticism in religion. In his mellow old age 
he was known far and near and beloved by all. In 
his death the community sustained a great loss and 
especially the needy, distressed, and sick, to whom 
he attended with a father's care. Oa February 3, 
1853, a g e( i seventy-eight years and ten months, he 
passed away. He sleeps with others of the family 
in the graveyard on the farm. His wife, Anna, 
born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, died 
October 31, 1837, aged fifty years and five months, 
and lies buried by her husband's side. 

They had twelve children — sons and daughters — 
nearly all of whom lived to a good age, but all have 
passed away except David, who has been a most 
zealous and able minister of the Lutheran Church, 
and is still an active man of God and an exemplary 
citizen, residing at present in Colorado Springs, 
Colo. 



ANCESTRY. 89 

The tenth child of George and Anna Harbaugh 
was Henry Harbaugh — 181 7- 1867, the subject of 
the following pages : 

And so we have the progenitor and great-grand- 
father, Yost ; the grandfather, Jacob ; the father, 
George, and the son, Henry — all honorable men of 
good report ; all long since passed over to the spirit 
world, and their works do live after them. 

When these ancestors settled in York County and 
in the Valley and elsewhere, the country was wild 
and unbroken. On their own land they felled the 
forests, cleared the soil, and erected homes for them- 
selves and their descendants. All this was done by 
many a weary and earnest stroke. They were econ- 
omical, but bore the name of being good to the 
poor, and of practicing the virtue of hospitality. 
They were sober, kept their promises, and paid 
their debts, and were professors of the Christian 
religion. It is a duty and a pleasure to cherish the 
memory of those who have thus gone before us. To 
contemplate their lives and to grasp the spirit of 
their goodness cannot be but a blessed inspiration. 



II. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH ON THE 
FARM. 

HLMOST within the shadow of South Moun- 
tain, on the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary 
line four miles southeast of Waynesboro, Pa., stands 
the old Harbaugh homestead. The house is a double 
front stone structure whose substantial walls, built 
in 1805, bid fair to weather the storms of another 
century, while its less durable companion piece, the 
school house at the creek, " Juscht neekscht an's 
Dady's Haus," lives only in the song of the 
44 Harfe." Here amid the homely scenes of Penn- 
sylvania-German country life, George Harbaugh 
and Anna his wife lived and reared their children, 
and here it was that Henry was born on October 
28, 1817. 

In after years, when visiting the old home, he 
was wont to stroll through every corner of the house 
from cellar to garret. Rummaging among the old 
lumber, usually stowed away in the garret, his eye 
fell upon the cradle, which he thus describes : 

1 ' There is one piece of furniture in the corner of the 
garret, the sight of which touches us more strangely 
than all the rest, and awakens feelings of a peculiar 
kind. It is the cradle in which we all — the boys and 
the girls — were rocked in infancy. It is of the old 




0/ 



^/rt^-u^y 




FATHER OP HENRY HARBAUGH. 
FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE REV. DAVID HARBAUGH, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 9I 

fashioned make, and never was capable of the long, 
gentle sweep and swing of the modern cradles. Broad 
and flat, with rockers well worn, it hath little grace in 
its motion, but waddles clumsily, like a duck. Yet 
sweet in it was the sleep, and pleasant were the dreams 
of infanc}^ ; and over no cradle, no, not in palaces, Has 
a warmer mother's heart, or a more watchful mother's 
eye, ever hung and sighed, smiled, prayed, and wept." 

This stout oak cradle, the only tangible associa- 
tion of his infancy now in existence, was but a step 
in advance of the hollow gum log shut in at both 
ends with a board, made to lie upon the floor like a 
half moon on its back, in which the worthies of 
the generation preceding him had slept and dreamed 
the sweet dreams of infancy. Under the guidance 
of exceptionally pious parents and in association 
with brothers and sisters, both older and younger 
than himself, Henry Harbaugh first awakened to 
conscious life, and began to reveal a personality that, 
at the end of his alloted fifty years, had not yet 
wholly unfolded in all its possibilities. While yet 
in very tender years, he seemed to read a solemn 
meaning in the shadows cast upon the white walls 
of the stairway by the flickering candle, or in the 
moaning of the wind through the tall poplars ; but 
all this was the early fruit of a sound imagination, 
and meanwhile he breathed in courage and strength 
of mind and body and grew sturdy and strong like 
a tree in the open. His early mental growth was 



9 2 



IvlFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



marked by a gradual unfolding not marked any- 
where in its course by special brilliancy. He was 
propelled into a channel of intellectual activity 
wholly by a power within himself. His pastor, the 
Rev. F. A. Scholl, on one occasion suddenly stopped 
a conversation he was holding with the father, and 
laying his hand upon the boy's head, said : " You 
must become a preacher. n The recollection of that 
incident was to some extent a directing light but 
not a vital incident in his career. The opposition 
of a stern parent, who made a tardy recognition of 
the superior talents of his son, served as a stimulus 
to the boy's purposes. But in the light of his after 
struggles, his failures and his triumphs, it may be 
fairly asserted that no purely human agency could 
have swerved the sensitive soul and religious genius 
from his course or imperiled his entry into the holy 
ministry. He had been dedicated to God in holy 
baptism in early infancy, and was confirmed June 
4, 1836, at Waynesboro, Pa. Of these events he 
wrote in the Guardiaii of November, 1854 : 

11 Not long ago, I unexpectedly got into my hands the 
records of the church where my parents worshipped, 
where we, their children, were baptized, and where I 
recorded my first vows in confirmation. At the begin- 
ning of the Record Book there was a brief account of 
the organization of the church, many, many years ago ! 
There was the purpose and the pledge of those who were 
willing to enter into its first organization. There were 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 



93 



the rules by which they engaged to be governed ; and 
tinder these were subscribed the names of fifteen mem- 
bers, who solemnly began this church, in their own 
handwriting. Among them were the names of my 
father and mother. Ah, what feelings that record pro- 
duced, no one but myself can fully know. They are 
dead, and as their lives on earth prove, in Heaven. 
How much had that record to do with this happy re- 
sult ?" 

The blessed heritage of a pious faith was already 
his. He possessed a cheerful spirit and a happy 
blending of things practical, with a keen boyish 
imagination and sense of the mysterious. His 
youngest sister persisted in remembering him as a 
mischievous boy, though this recollection was dwelt 
upon in the evening of her life, and in evident con- 
templation of the attainments of her then Doctor 
of Divinity brother. Mischievous, that qualifying 
word with many shades of meaning, was really 
softened into a complimentary reference by the ex- 
pression of pride on her kindly face. 

The older boys of the Harbaugh household were 
farmers. They accepted that life in good earnest, 
and were afterwards faithful and successful in that 
pursuit. Henry suffered by contrast before he grew 
up to reach the handles of a plow. Upon a trip to 
the mountain sawmill, he was far more eager about 
the legend of Mount Misery than he was about the 
proper loading of the logs upon the wagon. The 



94 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



curious old coins that were one day turned up by 
the plow interested him more than the plow that 
turned them up. He chose to contemplate the 
majesty of the forest trees and the life that teemed 
among them rather than to assist in reducing such 
haunts of nature to practical and commercial levels. 
He made the birds around the old homestead his 
associates. How they sang for him in the morning 
in the tree tops near the house ! How they hurried 
with many a chirp and flutter from stake to stake, 
and swung and sang their songs in mowing-time on 
the tall weeds in the meadow ! When he went 
forth to labor he knew them as they floated grace- 
fully and leisurely high in the warm blue air. As 
they passed in droves away over the sombre land- 
scape of autumn ; as they moved towards the sunny 
South, his childish fancy conceived that they formed 
the letters of the alphabet in flying until they were 
lost in the dim distance. 

All this was the awakening of his poetic soul, 
and many impressive teachings were then stored up 
in his mind and made to bear fruit in the thoughts 
of his mature years. But he was practical and 
sociable. He ran with the other boys through the 
orchard to the dead tree where the " yellow ham- 
mer" had his nest, and he was among those who 
undertook to catch the bird while his companions 
would stand back and shout u a snake in the hole," 
just at the critical moment. He would stand with 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 95 

the others at a certain point in the orchard to hear 
the echo answer back from the barn door — the little 
man in the barn, as he was called. 

Dr. Bausman, writing in the Guardian, speaks 
of a visit he once took with Dr. Harbaugh to the 
old homestead : 

" At length he took me to the ' old pie apple tree/ 
still bringing forth fruit in old age. The tree faces the 
barn door. Standing here the boys used to call to ' the 
little man in the barn,' as they called the echo of their 
voices, who would mock them with his prompt replies 
to their questions. We both stood under the old tree, 
facing the barn door, when he, with grotesque sol- 
emnity, and, if I err not, with hat in hand, woke up 
with his trumpet voice the little man in the barn as 

follows : 

Harbaugh — Ho ! ho ! still alive ? 
Little Man— Ho ! still alive. 
H. — Little man in the barn ! 
L. M. — Man in the barn. 
H. — Are you getting old ? 
L. M. — You getting old ! 
H. — Still your voice is good. 
L. M. — Voice is good. . 
H. — Little man, farewell. 
L. M.— Man, farewell !" 

The suggestion that Henry was a mischievous 
boy might be greatly strengthened, if the tradition 
could be positively confirmed that he once lured 
several neighboring boys close to a hornets' nest 
hanging from a tree, and then from a safe distance 



9 6 IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

cast a stone into it. So it was as to the school life 
so faithfully pictured in " Das Alt Schulhaus an 
Der Krick. " The average school boy will scarcely 
admit that such a recital of rewards and punish- 
ments, of recreation and declarations of independ- 
ence, may be gathered from observation alone. And 
even observation alone would argue a slight infrac- 
tion of discipline, for he relates : 

1 1 Uf eener Seit die grose Mad 
Un dort die Buwe net so bleed — 
Guk, wie sie piepe rum. 

Der Meeschter watscht sie awwer scharf, 
Sie gewe besser acht : "* 

It is related that one morning little Heinrich " was 
taken by the hand and led to this school house. 
The schoolmaster gave him a seat. Ere long, how- 
ever, his new scholar grew weary of the task of sit- 
ting still so long. He took his cap to go home. 
When he was not allowed to escape through the 
door, he climbed up the logs of the unplastered 
wall, like a squirrel, seeking an outlet elsewhere. 
The master knew not what to make of the boy, but it 
was here that the strong boy-will took its first whole- 
some lessons by gradually yielding to authority." 

*Dr. Harbaugh has rendered these lines almost literally as follows : 

" Here on this side the large girls sat, 
And there the tricky boys on that — 
See ! how they peep around ! 

The Master eyes them closely now, 
They'd better have a care." 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 



97 



Those who have read the " Alt Schulhaus an 
der Krick n will recognize it as the one described 
below, by the author himself, in the Guardian of 
April, 1854 : 

1 ' As to its location, it was built amid rocks and stones 
and stumps, near where a small stream murmured by, 
and at the edge of a half-cleared woods. Between it 
and the road lay the commons, which not by right and 
title, but by custom and use, had from time immemo- 
rial been the playgrounds of the school children. It was 
so near the house and barn of Mr. Farmer that, looking 
over from the road, you would take it at first glance to 
be one of the out-houses belonging to the farm. In- 
deed, the cider press building joined roofs at one end 
with the school house. . . . 

' ' At one corner of the school house stood a large 
white oak tree, along whose sides grew up a very large 
grape vine, which extended itself all over the lower 
limbs of the tree, and in summer they hung down upon 
the roof. Happily, if not for the intellectual benefit of 
the children, yet happily for the interests of the farmer 
who owned the tree, there was school only in the win- 
ter, except a small summer school for little ones, who 
could not climb. Consequently there never was any 
opportunity for trying the strength of prohibitions, or 
the virtue of those whose mouths would water in the 
sight of forbidden fruit. ... On the west side of the 
school house was a long window, made by sawing out 
two logs, and the introduction of low two-pane sliding 
windows. Along the inside was a long double desk 



9 8 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

sloped on both sides for the large boys, that read, wrote, 
and ciphered. Along the gable was a similar desk for 
the big girls." 

The manner of life at the Harbaugh homestead 
was characterized by great simplicity. Until 
Henry was ten years of age not a floor in the house 
could boast a carpet ; not a single window flour- 
ished a curtain. It was quite an event when at 
length the floor was laid with a striped homemade 
oil-cloth. This wonder of the age was often visited 
with joy by the children while it was in course of 
preparation on the garret floor. When it was at 
last actually fitted to its place it remained for a long 
time the pride of the household. Then the other 
rooms began to look bare and cheerless by contrast, 
and the girls of the family became correspondingly 
restless. Although sweet and clean under the in- 
fluence of sand and soap, bare floors were no longer 
to be tolerated, and the good old customs of sim- 
plicity and economy, to that extent at least, must 
give way to a more modern finish. Gradually, 
therefore, every floor in the house received its soft 
covering and many of the solid comforts of a home < 
crept in under the management of a rising genera-' 
tion. The mother of this household accepted the 
innovation graciously, for she was a true woman 
and took pride in maintaining her home with all 
the cheerfulness and comfort that the means at 
hand would afford. To her it was the earthly par- 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 



99 



adise, and diligence in the affairs of her house she 
considered one of her most important duties. She 
kept a clean and neat kitchen and all the boards 
that were not painted or carpeted were always 
smooth and white from the application of sand and 
a scrubbing brush. Seldom was it that the last 
two hours of Saturday evening were not spent in 
examining, folding up, and laying into their proper 
places the raiment for the coming Sunday. She 
pitied the unfortunate with a sincere grief and was 
always good to the poor. She was one of those 
peculiar old-fashioned mothers who have graced 
every generation of the world's history, from whose 
doors one may see many a less prosperous neighbor 
depart with full baskets and full hearts. 

In "The Annals of the Harbaugh Family," 
Henry Harbaugh drew his own picture of his 
mother : 

11 In personal appearance she was not tall, but heavy. 
She always enjoyed good health ; and even in her last 
years, retained a ruddy color, and when exercising 
freely had rosy- cheeks. She was industrious, mild, and 
~ kind hearted to her children, and always good to the 
, poor. At the time of my mother's death, I was in 
Ohio, and did not hear of her sickness till I heard of 
her death. I had spent the summer in Harrisonville 
and returned to Massilon in November, 1837. My 
cousin, residing there, had just received a letter con- 
taining the sad news for me ; it having been directed to 



IO o LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

him because it was known at home that I expected 
about that time to be there. He immediately asked me 
to take a walk with him. We found our way into a 
woods south of town, where he opened to me the 
touching news. Her image came up to me, not as 
dead — for I could not see her so — but as she stood 
leaning upon the railing of the porch in tears, when I 
was entering the carriage to leave for the West, over a 
year before. In this way, and in no other, have I seen 
her ever since. In this position only do I desire to see 
her — it is the best picture of her true character, always 
affectionate, bearing tenderly upon her heart of hearts 
the temporal and eternal good of her children. I 
cherish this image of my weeping mother. I can so 
easily transfer this recollection of her to the state of 
the glorified in Heaven, where all the beautiful is 
permanent. So will I see her, till I meet her in the 
bloom of immortal youth, clothed in the pure white 
robes of the sainted, in our Father's house above. 

' ' She used to say, ' Give to the poor and you will 
always have.' I suppose she learned this from an old 
Book that used to lie on the corner of the mantel, and 
over which she used to pore full many an hour. It 
pleaseth me greatly that I can recollect this of n:^ 
mother, now that she sleeps in yonder grave. I never 
heard my mother boast of what she had done ; when 
she gave, it was all so natural with her, and she did it 
so quietly — just as it is with a tree when it shakes off 
its ripe fruit. 

"My mother used to read the Bible and go to 
church. It seems as if I could still see the carry-all 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. IO i 

move round the corner of the orchard, towards the 
little village in which stood the church where our 
fathers worshipped. It was a plain way of going to 
church, but it was the way my mother went ; and I 
verily believe she went with a good object in view ; 
and it is doubtful in my mind whether it ever entered 
her mind that it was a shame to go to church in a 
carry-all. It is a long time since then, and times and 
customs have greatly changed, but still it giveth me 
much pleasure to think of the old Book on the end of 
the mantel, that my mother used to read on Sunday 
afternoons after she returned from church. I cannot 
get rid of the idea that it was her church-going, in 
connection with that Book, that made her so good a 
mother. ' ' 

So Henry Harbaugh passed his boyhood, in the 
winter months at the school house by the creek ; in 
the summer turning the hay rows or following after 
the grain cradles in the broad acres of the harvest 
field. Perchance he would steal away to the moun- 
tain side, there to commune with nature or to pon- 
der over his well-thumbed book, away from the 
thoroughfares, far away from the towns where only 
the faintest din of the noisy work is heard and the 
tallest spire of the distant town is almost hid. 
Many an hour he spent watching the glistening 
surface of the winding stream or the tall poplars 
swaying in front of the quiet mountain brow afar 
off. An ideal place indeed for reading and study, 



IQ 2 WFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

where physical health makes meditation vigorous, 
and where separation from the great flow of busy 
life makes interruptions few. 

Into his quiet retreats there crept many a rude, 
disturbing element, and when duty called him 
back to the farm he grasped the handles and plodded 
along behind the plow with a cheerfulness of spirit 
that sustained and strengthened his reluctant hand. 
But he was not simply a dreamer. Between brain 
and brawn there was a goodly balance wheel. He 
had no apology for idleness, which he characterized 
as a burden to oneself, a trouble to others, and an 
offense to God. But in the rhythm of nature he had 
an enduring part, and the ordinary incidents of 
labor led to reflections of mind. Through the prac- 
tical all around him he perceived the ideal, and 
throughout boyhood and youth his mental treasury 
was being fortified and replenished at the expense 
of a constant drain upon his material resources. 
He took notes almost from the time he was able to 
write and in so doing he was regular and system- 
atic. His earliest book of the kind to which he 
referred frequently in after years, has never been 
found among his papers, though in an article in 
the Guardian he declares that he would not part 
with it for money. Some curious loose papers 
remain which illustrate how frank he was and 
unreserved in expression. The rude characters in 
boyish hand are in marked contrast to the firm, 



V 



CH1XDOOD AND YOUTH. I0 3 

clear penmanship of his mature years. The 
spelling was unhesitatingly sacrificed to save the 
thought, and yet one may readily lose sight of the 
uncouth vehicles by which the idea was fostered 
and carried along, until it might be needed to do 
the bidding of its master. Thus almost every- 
thing he wrote in those early days exercised and 
trained his mind, and in after years he found it not 
only available and useful, but pleasant to contem- 
plate when passed in review. How observant he 
was of the shifting panorama of nature may be 
gathered in many pages of the Guardian, whose 
founder and editor for many years he was. 

His picture of a rainy day at the farm is but one 
of many fond recollections. He does not mean the 
thunder storm which rises in mid-afternoon and 
drives over in an hour, but he found beauty and 
sublimity in that too. u Watch the deep dark 
clouds moving up slowly from the western horizon, 
increasing in deepness and darkness as the storm 
advances. Soon a bank of rolling clouds like a vast 
arch extends across the sky from which the light- 
ning glares and darts, while muttering thunder 
shakes the earth ; beneath the grand arch is seen 
the broad sheet of white descending rain, hiding 
the distant woods, sweeping the wide plain fields, 
and drawing still nearer. Already the birds are 
silent in the branches and the cattle move towards 
a shelter; or, if shut in, stand in mute wonder and 



io4 



IvlFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



fear, while the plowman has unhitched his horses 
and is riding towards the barn. Scarcely has the 
barnyard gate closed upon him when the big drops 
fall like bullets into the hot dust of the road, and 
in a moment more the rain comes down almost a 
torrent, and a fair sheet pours from the eves of the 
barn. The tin spout chuckles in vain to disgorge 
its overloaded contents, and the plowman as he 
stands thoughtfully at the stable door listens while 
roaring wind and descending rain tell him only the 
more sweetly that he is indeed in shelter. It has 
rained a few hours. The sun has come forth, and 
the whole face of the earth smiles in freshness and 
beauty. The horses have rested and the plowman 
has taken his supper. This done, he goes forth 
again i to his work till the evening.' The sun has 
a milder brightness, the fields are greener, and the 
mountains have a bluer tinge through the pure air. ' ' 
"But the rainy day we have in mind is the 
settled rain, one that does not begin and end on 
the same day — a steady, deliberate rain that soaks 
the earth and fills the rivers. The cattle seem to 
have less fear of it than they have of the passing 
summer shower. It comes not so suddenly and 
thus cools them without inspiring terror. They 
are the very picture of patience as they stand in 
the barn yard to be rained on. The farmer is not 
impatient at this protracted rain. It will make the 
plowing one horse easier. When he goes forth 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 



I05 



again to the fields he will not turn up the dry earth 
as he did after the thunder shower. It has pene- 
trated a full foot into the ground. How nicely the 
coulter cuts the sod and how smoothly the mould- 
board turns the furrow, and the horses move in a 
brisk pace. These rainy days are no loss of time 
to the judicious farmer. He will find indoor work 
enough for ' the boys. ' The plow irons must be 
put in proper order. The horse's gears must be 
greased. The barn mows must be cleared and put 
to rights. The stables and feeding rooms need a 
thorough overhauling. It will even do no harm 
and look only better if the spider webs are swept 
away froni the ceiling of the stables and through- 
out the barn. There is always some one about 
who is not slow in wood work. An axe, a shovel, 
or a fork needs a handle. A chair or a bench is to 
be mended, and some of the racks in the barn need 
slight repairs. In short, there is enough to do, 
and there is no need of getting impatient of the 
long rain or going to the nearest tavern to pass the 
time. In all the sneaking crowd that there doth 
congregate, you will not find one good farmer. 
You shall see when the rain is over in what fresh- 
ness and beauty the earth will lie before you. 
What deep green the fields have put on. The rain 
has not been licked up on the surface as in the hot 
dust or sand ; it has found its way down to the 
roots, and its influence upon vegetation will be 



I0 6 WFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

permanent. The pastures are clothed with flocks ; 
the valleys also are covered over with corn ; they 
shout for joy; they also sing." 

No one who had been a laggard on the farm 
could have written thus ; no one who had escaped 
the practical work of a farmer could have received 
such faithful impressions, much less cherished them 
unto the time of his manhood. 

Thus in a home into which the stirring events 
of the outside world had already begun to extend 
their influences, midst simplicity, typical of the 
Pennsylvania-German farmer life, Henry Harbaugh 
grew from boyhood to youth, and in his eighteenth 
year began to grow restless — weary of the plow 
and less than ever inclined to the life around him. 
He had no quarrel with his father at any time. 
There is no one to rise up and say that he was dis- 
obedient or anything but reverent in his conduct 
towards either parent. No one could have carried 
into his mature life a more constant affection for 
his mother, and with brothers and sisters he well 
understood the code of honor and always rendered 
the full measure of brotherly kindness. Whatever 
his boyish faults that are buried in the past may 
have been, his impulses were as generous as they 
were earnest and positive. 

But the time had come for the parting of the 
ways. The father, still cherishing the hope that 
his son would curb his restless spirit and remain 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 



107 



upon the farm, declined then and afterwards for 
some years to encourage him with fianancial assist- 
ance. 

What would seem now as a sort of intermediate 
step to what the boy proposed to do, was taken in 
the engagement to work in the mill of his uncle, 
Elias Harbaugh, over in the " Valley. n Whether 
or not the undertaking to learn the busines of a 
miller was serious, he only remained at it for 
a part of a year. Mills of that day had a way of 
running themselves a good part of the time, and 
this circumstance no doubt gave the coveted oppor- 
tunity for the young man to think and to pore over 
a few books that he had at hand. At all events, 
within a year he had turned his back on the old 
mill and his ancestral valley, crossed over the 
mountain and told his father that he was going 
West. 

" Then," writes Dr. Theodore Apple, " there was 
a great stir of course among the Harbaughs, old 
and young, and the anxious question was raised at 
once, what is to become of Unser Heinrich ? The 
father gave him up as a lost son, and the mother 
stood on the front porch, looking after him as he 
went down the road, as she wiped away with her 
apron a flood of tears rolling down her cheeks. 
She never saw him afterwards. This scene he de- 
scribed with his own pen when he began to use it, 
in one of his poems. Uncle Jonathan, who lived 



IQ 8 IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

on a neighboring farm, was more self-possessed. 
He said Henry could not be stopped. It would 
either be a make or a break, and he believed that it 
would turn out to be a make." 

The casual summer visitor to Pen-Mar Park, 
viewing the peaceful valley from " High Rock," 
may have a complete panorama of the scenes which 
have been made so familiar in the Pennsylvania- 
German poems — the scenes from which Henry 
Harbaugh so sadly turned away in the summer of 
1836. Here was his home, here the favorite walks, 
the lonely retreats, the woods and streams which 
he knew so well, and all the stages upon which he 
acted in boyhood and youth. Here were many 
hidden nooks to which he often resorted to think 
over his own situation, his responsibilities, and his 
future hopes and fears. No one in all that country 
knew the mountain paths and the winding way to 
u High Rock" better than he did. Of this he 
wrote in the summer of 1845: " Dr. Trail Green 
is going to visit my home with me, and we intend 
to go up to l High Rock.' It is on the mountain 
about four miles from my home. It is one of the 
most splendid views I ever beheld. It towers 
high, and from it is to be seen a level valley forty 
miles long and twenty-five broad, extending from 
the South Mountain to the Alleghenies in width 
and nearly from the Susquehanna to the Potomac 
rivers in length. All this valley can be seen from 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. I09 

the rock — houses, fields, woods, and streams — all 
lie in silent grandeur before the spectator." 

But modern progress has greatly changed the 
landscape. Much of the land has been cleared 
for farms. Railroads cut across the country, bridges 
span the meadows, and the shrieking engines scale 
the mountain side. Nothing remains to mark the 
site of the school house at the creek save the fast 
decaying portion of a white oak stump. 

" Der Weisseech schteht noch an der Dhier — 
Macht Schatte iwwer's Dach."* 

The old cider press is gone. The narrow wind- 
ing path to High Rock, difficult to climb and follow, 
has given way to the smoothly graded highways. 
The only remaining landmarks are the gray stone 
house, and the quaint, weather-beaten barn, which 
from the point of view above seem to stand close in 
to the base of the mountain. 

Much of the tenderness and pathos of the original 
are lost in the English translation of " Heemweh," 
but may we not let this little bit of home-memory 
complete the imperfect sketch? 

" As nearer to the spot I come 
More sweetly am I drawn ; 
And something in my heart begins 
To urge me faster on. 

* The white-oak stands before the door 
And casts its shadow on the roof. 



I IO LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Ere quite I've reached the last hill-top — 
You'll smile at me, I ween ! — 

I stretch myself high as I can, 
To catch the view serene — 

The dear old stone house through the trees 
With shutters painted gre e a 

See ! really I am near the faons 
How short the instance seems 

There is no sense of time when one 

Goes musing in his dreams 
There is the shop — the com-crib, too — 

The cider-press — just see 
The b arn — th e spring wit b ". ri ~\-iing cup 

Hung up against the tree. 
7!:e yard — fence— an 1 the little gate 

Just where it used to be.'' 



III. THE STUDENT AND APPRENTICE 
IN THE WEST. 

A brief glance at the history of the time may, 
perhaps, enable one to appreciate the influences that 
prevailed and the conditions that confronted the 
young man ambitious to succeed in life, but not 
fully conscious as yet of the resources at his com- 
mand, nor of the direction his efforts might take. 
Beyond the immediate circle of home life the 
world begins to widen rapidly, and, as the larger 
view grows dim in detail, it intensifies in solemn 
reality. He who widens the sphere of action for 
himself, deepens his responsibility to God and his 
fellowmen. Henry Harbaugh, early in life, eagerly 
sought the former condition ; how faithfully he as- 
sumed the latter may be gathered from his life and 
works. 

The year of 1836 found the American people at 
the culmination of an exceptionally brilliant moral 
and industrial revival. * A wave of temperance 
sentiment and activity had modified the national 
habit of eating and drinking too much. Industries 
and public improvements had made strides in all 
parts of the country upon a scale never before 
dreamed of. The habit of expressing solicitude 

* Andrews' U. S. Hist. 



II2 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

for the fate of the Union had largely passed away, 
and both of the dominant political parties were 
pinning their faith to the patriotism and good sense 
of the common people. Every American had come 
to believe in America. The decade ending with 
1840, was the transition period in mode of travel 
from the old stage coach to railroads and canals. 
Ex-President Madison had just died, and such men 
as Adams, Calhoun, Jackson, Webster, and Clay 
were exerting masterly activity in politics and 
statesmanship ; the last two named being in the 
midst of a thirty years' unsuccessful struggle for 
the presidency. The presidential campaign of 1836 
was being waged with great bitterness. A national 
literature was in its formative period, with Cooper, 
Irving, Hallack, and others enjoying the popularity 
which was shared a little later by Emerson, Haw- 
thorne, Longfellow, and Whittier. Manners and 
habits of dress were improving slowly. Gentlemen 
were still to be seen dressed for the street not so 
differently from the revolutionary style, while 
women wore enormous leghorn hats, leg-of-mutton 
sleeves, and skirts barely reaching the ankle. 
Letters were folded, sealed with wax, and mailed 
without envelopes until 1839, and stamps were not 
used until some years later. The mails were slow 
and uncertain and postage was a considerable item 
of expense. In 1834 Chicago had one mail a week 
by a messenger on horse back. The railroad from 



IN THE WEST. 



113 



Philadelphia to Columbia, Pa., the canal from there 
to Hollidaysburg, the portage railway over the 
mountains to Johnstown and the canal from there 
to Pittsburg afforded a means of travel between 
East and West which began to rival the old stage 
lines. Ohio, between the years 1835 and 1840, in- 
creased in population from about one million to a 
million and a half. It had already become the 
promised land towards which the young men of 
Harbaugh's Valley in Pennsylvania were turning, 
and indeed several relatives of the family had 
already settled in this new West. Information was 
eagerly sought as to the best way to go and the 
means of transportation. The whole subject was 
talked over quietly at home, but more boldly at the 
blacksmith shop or other places of assembly during 
the leisure hours of the day, and at the singing 
schools and social gatherings in the evening. Con- 
flicting reports came back from the settlers of this 
far off country. As might be expected, some had 
succeeded and liked it ; others had failed and re- 
turned home. The prevailing opinion seemed to 
be that it promised well for all who were willing to 
work and stay long enough to conquer their long- 
ings for the blue mountains of Pennsylvania. 

About the first of August, 1836, just one hun- 
dred years after his great-grandfather had come out 
of Switzerland to seek a new country, Henry Har- 
baugh began his journey over the mountains to- 



ii4 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



wards Ohio. He was not yet nineteen years old and 
it was not only a new departure for him, but also 
the first break in the family circle in this regard. 
His father was displeased with the prospect and 
gave merely a formal consent, withholding the gen- 
erous approval which the young man so strongly 
craved. The mother was heart-broken, but her 
farewell was as affectionate and tender as her love 
for all her children had been constant and true, and 
the memory of that parting at the threshold of the 
old home lingered through the after years until it 
became enshrined in the tender pathos of "Heem- 
welt." 

George Harbaugh lived to recognize the talents 
of his son and to behold them being rendered unto 
God with manifold increase, but the mother's life 
had almost run its course, and ^Heemweh? s" sad- 
dest note was struck : 

Dort gab ich ihr mei' Farewell, 

Ich weinte als ich's gab, 
'S war's letschte Mol in dare Welt, 

Dass ich's ihr gewe hab ! 
Befor ich widder kumme bin 

War sie in ihrem Grab !* 

The little school house by the creek and its suc- 

* 'Twas there I gave her my good-b3 r e, 
I wept as it I gave, 
It was the last time in this world 

Her blessing I could crave. 
Before I had come back again 
She rested in her grave. 



IN THE WEST. 



115 



cessors in office had already left their impress on 
the boys and girls of the Harbaugh family. They 
could read and write well in the English language, 
though the Pennsylvania-German dialect was still 
the means of ordinary communication in the fam- 
ily, and German was largely used in the services 
and sermons of the church. Imperfect as the 
school system was and unsupported as it was by 
popular sentiment, the average scholar of that day 
managed to acquire much general information of a 
practical kind from the Schulrneister, who was 
sometimes a resident of the district, and at other 
times a stranger who had perfected his education in 
a more highly favored institution of learning be- 
yond the mountains. 

Being assured a temporary home with relatives, 
Henry Harbaugh set out for Eastern Ohio on Au- 
gust 4, 1836. Poor in purse but hopeful and self- 
reliant, he engaged passage in the stage running 
from Chambersburg, Pa., through Bedford, Somer- 
set, and Mount Pleasant to Pittsburgh. As may 
well be supposed, the conveniences of travel and 
lodging were of the simplest sort, and his first 
touch of homesickness came early in the journey, 
when the stage arrived at Mount Pleasant : " Here 
the passengers left me for Wheeling and I was left 
alone. I sat with the driver fifteen miles and then 
went in the stage, lay down and slept as much as I 
could, and that was not much." 



H6 LIFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

At Pittsburgh he took passage by steamboat about 
fifty-three miles down the Ohio river and from that 
point by stage and canal boat he completed his 
journey. Within two weeks of the time he left his 
home in Franklin County, Pa., he was engaged to 
work with a house builder in Massilon, Stark 
County, Ohio, and continued in that position six 
months. He noted the fact that his employer was 
" a man with respectable ancestors who understands 
his business well," and was also struck with the 
extensive scale upon which building business was 
carried on in Ohio, and feared that it would take 
more of his time than he had to spare to learn it. 
He engaged himself at first for one month for what- 
ever the man pleased to give him, and at the end of 
that time he was offered fifty dollars a year for two 
years and boarding, which he declined. He worked 
on, however, for the first six months without any 
definite arrangement as to pay and after that found 
employment with another man who was engaged in 
building machinery. 

He was not in Massilon more than a month until 
his talents as a singer began to attract attention. 
He sang in the church choir on the first Sunday of 
his stay in Massilon, and was kindly received by the 
minister and some members of the congregation. 
A few days after that he was invited to attend a 
singing school several miles out from the town. 
He went and sang for an assembled audience of 



IN THE WEST. Il7 

about one hundred persons, young men and women, 
and at the suggestion of some of his hearers, he 
organized a class on the spot, having twenty-four 
names enrolled that evening. These singing classes 
he kept up during the winter months at whatever 
place he chanced to be during the whole of his so- 
journ in the West, and while they yielded some in- 
come in connection with his daily work, they also 
formed no small part of his early education and 
culture. 

He began a private course of study and reading 
from the very day he landed in Ohio, and he never 
let slip an opportunity to attend lectures, debates, 
or patriotic meetings, and took an active part in 
them whenever invited so to do. He formed some 
very warm friendships, and engaged in a corres- 
pondence with several of his most intimate friends, 
in the course of which the most sacred confidences 
were exchanged, and subjects of a literary or reli- 
gious character were discussed in a very systematic 
way on the plan of debates. To one thus engaged 
in self education under very limited advantages this 
form of correspondence was invaluable, and resulted 
in some remarkable discussions in which are shown 
very painstaking and original research on the part 
of the authors. It was a profitable but rather an 
unusual way of spending the time on the part of 
young men of twenty years. His letters written 
home contain much thoughtful and tender expres- 



n8 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

sion, and, from the very first, embodied a gentle 
agitation of the question which was uppermost in 
his mind. Scarcely a letter written to any one in 
the East omitted the request for an opinion as to 
his finishing his trade or going to school. u Be 
sure to tell me in your next all about what the folks 
think of me learning the trade, " he writes perhaps 
two months after he had left home. And at the end 
of one letter is this tell-tale but pathetic sentence : 
14 1 don't think I will forever continue at the car- 
penter business. " 

Gradually the accounts of his progress in learn- 
ing grew more frequent and confident in tone, and 
his epistolary efforts, interspersed liberally with 
verses on various topics, began to cause some un- 
easiness at home, consequently there were murmur- 
ings of the rewards of changeableness and sloth that 
were sure to overtake Unser Heinrich. In this crisis 
a good friend to whom Henry had gone to school 
for a while, came to the rescue with some very 
wholesome advice. He was blunt in expression 
and went straight to the mark, but he was as kind 
hearted as he was intelligent, having both the con- 
fidence of and confidence in the young man to whom 
he addressed himself. U I am happy to find," he 
writes, " that the liberty I took in criticizing has 
not ruffled you against me. As some allusion is 
made respecting metaphor and figures of speech 
and mystics, I would briefly reply that it depends 



IN THE WEST. II9 

much upon what calling you pursue. To cul- 
tivate them certainly refines the mind, and a 
speaker can make an object appear more vivid and 
can bring it out in more than its own true colors. 
But my principal object in making those remarks 
was on account of your being flattered in your 
poetical effusions, and fearing that you might 
thereby be carried from the object which I have 
understood you have in view, and turn author, ex- 
pecting thereby to support yourself by your pen. 
I know from biographical and other sketches that 
literary men, particularly those who follow no other 
calling, in Europe, have lived poor lives with few 
exceptions, however famous they may have been 
after their death, and even then their progeny de- 
rived little from their labors more than the praise 
they heard lavished on their works. And as to 
America it is ten times worse in that respect than 
Europe. 

11 Having learned from good authority that you 
intend to prepare yourself for the ministry and hav- 
ing some idea of your means, I thought probably 
you would pay less attention to the mystic and more 
to the real simon pure, although the reasons you 
advance please me well, nor do I wish to bind you 
in any contracted sphere of usefulness as some who 
are spouting forth occasionally their jealousy by 
saying you wish to be better than other people and 
wish to live without work. Such sentiments are 



120 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

almost beneath contempt, just as if a man's labor 
was done when he can read and write well and speak 
fluently. As regards my sentiments respecting the 
animadversions made upon you by some ministers 
I agree with them in some points. If you were to 
address the common people, which of course you 
will if you become a minister of the Gospel, would 
you think high-wrought pictures, mysterious figures 
having the semblance of fiction, and flaming alle- 
gories would have the tendency to arrest the atten- 
tion of hearers to their benefit ? Or would it be 
better to have the plain matter of fact way, illus- 
trated by comparisons within the knowledge of 
people, warmly pressed on them by the action and 
gesticulations of the speaker ? That some people 
have a dull, monotonous way of addressing their 
hearers is true, and the effect it has on the hearers 
is about the same that the rain has on the sands of 
the Arabian deserts. These suggestions are made 
for no other purpose than to draw your attention to 
a point that may perhaps be of some utility, not 
that I think to dictate to you anything as a superior > 
but as a friend." 

The foregoing extract is given at some length for 
the reason that it intimates to what extent the 
young student in the West had been already mak- 
ing use of his pen, and for the further reason that 
it furnishes a fair specimen of the courtly, high- 
flown diction that prevailed at that age. Henry 



IN THE WEST. 121 

Harbaugh's earliest letters and essays were much in 
the same vein, though there was an element of 
humor that brightened the quaint phrases. With a 
very imperfect knowledge of the origin of words, he 
seemed to adopt them sometimes because of their 
great length, and as his spelling improved his ex- 
pressions became more formidable, and the words 
used often exceeded in length the requirements of 
the thought. In the first letter written home to his 
brother, he announces, in the most comprehensive 
way, that he proposed to stay in the West, " to im- 
prove myself in the acquirements that I find are 
necessary to us and to every young man who takes 
an interest in his future happiness and enterprise 
and who does not wish continually to bear the yoke 
of oppression and contempt that is laid upon them 
by those who are possessed of superiority. " But he 
follows this with the announcement : U I will now 
give you a memorandum of the females of the 
West," whereupon he launches out into a most del- 
icate tribute to the grace and beauty of the young 
women with whom he had become acquainted ; and 
lest his brother should suspect that he was becom- 
ing too deeply absorbed in the social pleasures of 
his new home, he adds, "but I have another mag- 
got in my brain now besides marrying a wife." 

In recording some facts relative to his departure 
from home, he used the words : "I left my home 
for Ohio to fulfil my designs," and from the whole 



122 UFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

trend of his life thereafter it may be gathered that 
his purpose was to obtain an education. His under- 
taking to learn a trade was a financial expedient in 
part, and incidentally a means of convincing his 
friends that his plans did not involve the forsaking 
of manual labor. Comments and criticisms upon 
his work and purposes were always received by him 
in the most humble and kindly spirit ; he never let 
slip an opportunity to learn, no matter in what 
form the information or experience presented itself. 
He was a sensitive soul, however, easily driven to 
the gloom of discouragement through the applica- 
tion of harsh terms, but his spirits were buoyant, 
easily recoverable, and not to be trodden under foot 
with impunity. He was possessed of a calm cour- 
age, and, when convinced that he was right, could 
wield as keen a lance as any that ever was thurst 
against him. 

In and about Massilon, Canal Dover, and New 
Hagerstown he remained until the fall of 1840. 
He taught school three winters and attended the 
sessions of New Hagerstown Academy during two 
summers. During all this time he wrote a great 
deal. Everything that impressed his mind at all 
was jotted down, and much of it having served his 
purpose as an exercise, was destroyed. His long 
words often ran wide of a proper meaning and his 
muse sometimes rode a rough horse, but with it all 
he wrote letters, prepared speeches upon patriotic 



IN THE WEST. I23 

subjects, and delivered them upon numerous occa- 
sions ; read original essays, and once at least entered 
into the field of romance and published his story in 
one of the Ohio weekly papers. Upon the occa- 
sion of this production his candid friend again 
appears with his criticism : 

u I received a paper some weeks ago," he writes, 
"from you, containing a fictitious piece which is 
pretty well written. It is well composed and con- 
ceived for so young a hand as yourself, taking your 
literary attainments and your chance and time for 
your education into consideration ; there are some 
few expressions though at the time of reading I 
thought were injudicious, and the latter part winds 
up rather abrupt to continue the thread of the story 
with the same uniformity that the part down to the 
marriage seemed to promise. However, I do not 
wish to discourage you from sending me a paper at 
any time that contains a composition from your 
pen, whether poetical or prosaical." 

The Harbaughs as a family were always Demo- 
crats, and Henry joined the young men of Ohio in 
support of Van Buren in 1836. He was not to be 
outdone in party zeal by any one, and he declared 
that if he chewed tobacco he would not hesitate a 
minute to bet a chew on Van Buren. But while 
he was a debater and partisan shouter with the 
other boys of his acquaintance, he did not become 
a presidential voter until 1840, and by that time he 



124 



IvIFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



had come to enlist in the cause of Harrison. Poli- 
tics had a prominent part in the debates and written 
communications of that day, and the flings at each 
other on partisan questions were perhaps no worse, 
certainly they were no better than at the present 
day. 

In the summer of 1839, Henry had so far 
changed his political faith as to say : " I am afraid 
that Van will be re-elected. I expect that your in- 
fluence is in his favor, but I assure you that a man 
who says that l the farther the power of suffrage 
(or voting) is removed from the people the better' 
will not get my vote ; and he also said that any 
person who was not worth $250 should not have a 
vote, and at that rate I myself would hardly have 
a vote, and I think that I as a freeman am as much 
entitled to one as Mr. Van himself. Before I would 
vote for a man who has said all this, and to top the 
climax recommends that cursed Sub-Treasury bill, 
I would go to Texas. I don't want you to under- 
stand from this, however, that I belong to the Whig 
party. I am opposed to parties. I am a Republi- 
can, a Democrat and a friend of equal rights, but 
not a Van Buren man. I am a genuine Conserva- 
tive ! ! ! !" 

The exclamation marks all belong to the original 
text here quoted. Late in the winter of 1837 he 
came East in the expectation of receiving some 
substantial encouragement and assistance that would 



IN THE WEST. I25 

enable him to attend school. It is difficult for one 
to realize that a young man of Pennsylvania-Ger- 
man family as late as the year 1836 should find it 
necessary to strive for the privileges of an educa- 
tion, and to be postponed on account of a mistaken 
sentiment, arising partly out of his own personality ; 
but the fact remains that he returned to the West 
with the declaration : " The prospects of going to 
school have again been blasted.'' He again set to 
work as a carpenter and when he had earned about 
$200, lost it all by the failure of his employer. He 
remained at the trade undismayed, however, and 
increased his earnings by teaching common school 
and singing classes. He shut himself up in the 
evenings in a bolting chest which he had selected 
for a study, secured some candles, and while his less 
serious companions were spending their time in 
idleness, pored over his books. 

In one of the earlier numbers of the Guardian, 
he related his own experience : 

" We know a young man who in the course of his 
business as a journeyman mechanic, was thrown among 
a company of young fellow-workmen who had ' no 
other resort/ as they thought, but to spend their even- 
ings in playing cards in a mill, which they were at the 
time furnishing with its inside machinery and fixtures. 
He, having been trained to different habits, had no 
difficulty in finding another place of resort. He pro- 
cured for himself candles, fixed up for himself a study 



126 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

in a finished bolt chest, where he spent his evenings in 
reading, writing, and study. As we know him well, 
we have been frequently assured that he still remem- 
bers some things which he learned in that bolting 
chest ; and he is firmly of the opinion that those even- 
ings were among the most pleasant and profitable of 
his whole life. While the card players would fall out 
in the game, and swear in fearful style at one another, 
the echoes of which would ring through the mill, he 
was getting along on the very best of terms with the 
poets, historians, and sages of other days. These con- 
versed with him kindly and wisely, and did not seem at 
all ashamed or impatient of his humble company. ' ' 

In the winter of 1839 he was at the academy, 
New Hagerstown, which he described as a small 
place with two taverns, two churches, three stores, 
one squire, a female seminary, and an academy for 
young men. They had two literary societies which 
met every Saturday for the purpose of select decla- 
mations, reading of original essays, and debating. 
He took the regular academical course except Latin 
and Greek, which he did not take up until he went 
to Marshall College. To one of his friends he thus 
describes his apartments : " Fancy to yourself you 
see a large three-story brick house, not altogether 
finished. Now do not be forever gazing at the out- 
side, but step in, straight forward, up stairs, turn 
to the left (need not knock), well here is Harbaugh's 
studying room ! Take care, don't tramp on the 



IN THK WEST. 



127 



nail that sticks up in the floor near the door. Do 
you know what that's for? Well, I'll tell you : 
there are a few fellows in the other rooms who are 
fond of popping in to molest me, so you see we 
take that piece of board and put one end against 
the door and the other against the nail, then when 
they knock, i there is nobody at home.' " 

Adopting a more sober train of thought in the 
communication just quoted, he proceeds to an 
argument on infant baptism and, in the conclusion 
of it, records the view of Christian charity which 
he entertains as a young man of twenty-two years : 

" If you were baptized in the stream under water 
in faith and sincerity, you in my opinion are bap- 
tized right, but I consider that sprinkling is just as 
scriptural. I have spoken with reference to the sub- 
ject in sincerity and I hope you will review it with 
a Christian spirit. I do not wish to fight against 
truth for the sake of prejudice, for I could wish that 
there were many who are no more sectarian than I 
am. Though I belong to a church, yet I do not 
feel disposed to condemn those who do not perform 
their worship as our church does. I believe if there 
were more union of heart among professors of reli- 
gion it would be better. I am afraid there is too 
much said respecting the form, and the heart loses 
its devotion. The ancients, like some at the pres- 
ent day, thought that if they could only slay a 
bullock upon the altar, that the work was done, 



I2 8 MFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

but God declares that he will not regard their sacri- 
fice. " 

The number of poems written by Henry Har- 
baugh during his three years' sojourn in Ohio will 
never be known. At least fifty of them are extant, 
nearly all of which are of considerable length. A 
few of them w T ere written in albums and probably 
half of them were published from time to time in 
various newspapers. 

One of his first finished essays on " Music" was 
delivered at the New Hagerstown Academy at the 
exhibition held by the students of that institution, 
September 27, 1839. It is in two parts, exceeding 
in length any of his productions of that period, 
and bears evidence of much thought, as well as an 
acknowledgment of his special love for that theme. 
In one brief sentence he couples his ancestral Swit- 
zerland with his beloved native land in a beautiful 
and affectionate manner. Speaking of music 
personified, he exclaims: " Superstition had 
chained the heaven-born stranger until the Re- 
formers tuned his harp to more heaven-wrought 
strains in the churches of Europe, and taught him 
the songs which angels sang upon the plains of 
Bethlehem. But Europe could not retain the 
peaceful pilgrim, nor were the glens of Switzerland 
ample to captivate the imperial echoes, but on the 
trans-Atlantic strands of America he was destined 
to chant the song of freedom." Not among the 



IN THE WEST. 



129 



least of his essays was u The Mind of Man as 
Evinced by its Operations," which was read at the 
literary contest in the New Hagerstown x^cademy, 
March 27, 1840. The Franklin Literary Society 
was represented by Mr. James McGinnis of East- 
port, Ohio, and the Madison Literary Society by 
Henry Harbaugh, who carried off the honors of the 
occasion. This essay abounded in metaphor and 
poetic expression, setting forth inter alia that, " the 
mind of man is like a small rill that rises in some 
sequestered glen, and becomes mighty in propor- 
tion as it approaches the ocean, which at first plays 
carelessly among the laureled wilds in all the beauty 
of romantic solitude. When we contemplate the 
unbounded range of arts, sciences, and improve- 
ments around us, we are instantly led to look up 
with wonder to those Herculean minds whose ex- 
panded intellects have far outstripped even the 
most extravagant fancies of earlier years !" 

So it remained for this industrious young essay- 
ist to look back with astonishment upon the ex- 
travagant fancies of his earlier years, some of which 
were embodied in the very prophesies he had made* 

He also delivered a number of patriotic addresses, 
notab 1 y the one to his fellow-citizens on the 4th of 
July, 1840, upon u The Causes which led to the 
Declaration of Independence." 

In the early summer of 1839, ^ s father made a 
brief visit to the West, and upon this occasion 



13° 



IylFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



Henry had great expectations of settling finally the 
difficulties that yet stood in the way of his further 
education. But the occasion passed without any 
event that changed his prospects, and he struggled 
on until October, 1840, when, poor in scrip as ever, 
but with moral and intellectual capital unimpaired, 
he applied for admission to the Freshman class at 
Marshall College, Mercersburg, Pa. 

Dr. Bausman describes Henry Harbaugh's meet- 
ing with Dr. Nevin at Mercersburg : 

" Then already he (Dr. Nevin) was widely known as 
a theologian and a ripe scholar. Sitting at his study 
table one day, engaged in severe mind work, a bashful 
young man approached his door with no little misgiv- 
ing ; with just such thoughts as would naturally op- 
press any young man of ordinary modesty in approach- 
ing a college president for the first time. He raps at 
the door and is told to ' come in' in a tone of voice 
which by no means removes his embarrassment. His 
story is soon told. The keen eye of the president scans 
him with painful care. There was nothing in the young 
man to promise an extraordinar}' future. A polished 
exterior, and an ease of manner, which feels perfectly 
at home in such a presence one cannot expect in one of 
his age. A sound body he seemed to have and a head 
which gave room for brain enough, provided it was of 
the right sort. His whole appearance was that of a 
young man fresh from his work shop, a rough stone 
hewn out of the mountain, which needed much careful 
chiseling to bring out the full-formed, finished, sym- 



IN THE WKST. I3I 

metrical statue. His room was assigned him. After 
passing through the usual examination he entered the 
Freshman class. At length his long cherished hopes to 
become a college student are realized.' } 

Thus ran the course of fortune with him until his 
twenty-third year. Much of it all — the downfall- 
ings and uprisings, the smiles and tears, and aught 
else that goes to make up the lights and shadows of 
an eventful life — may be rounded out from the diary 
of one's own experiences, for the old world wags 
much the same for all, and life's story is an old one. 



IV. MARSHALL COLLEGE AND THE 
SEMINARY, MERCERSBURG. 

'f^'HERE were about 130 students at Mercersburg 
^^ at the opening session of Marshall College 
and the Seminary in the fall of 1840. Henry Har- 
baugh was not regarded as one of the most promis- 
ing among them. Dr. D. Y. Heisler remembered 
him well as he then appeared : u a somewhat slender 
and tall young man, with the evidences of hard 
work and earnest efforts deeply impressed upon his 
features. His athletic frame, sun-burned counte- 
nance, and bony hands, gave him an appearance 
wholly different from that of the future Dr. Har- 
baugh, with the image of whose pleasant and genial 
countenance we are all so familiar. He was there, 
however, in the power and spirit of his future self. 
In his regular studies and in all his exercises, liter- 
ary and theological, he exhibited the same earnest- 
ness, ardor and persistent application, which so 
eminently distinguished him in after life. In the 
discharge of his duties in the seminary and college, 
as well as in his occasional addresses to Sunday- 
schools, which with other students he used to attend 
in the country, he was always enthusiastic, fresh, 
and instructive ; but his style of speaking was then 
comparatively crude and his gestures exceedingly 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



133 



awkward, owing greatly, no doubt, to his self-for- 
getting earnestness in the presentation of the truth." 

The young student arrived at Mercersburg No- 
vember n, 1840. He had left Ohio in mid-October, 
having secured passage with his brother, who was 
then coming East, in a two-horse carriage. The 
trip was accomplished in seven days and was far 
more comfortable and pleasant in every way than 
was afforded by his former mode of travel. 

He had formed some warm personal attachments 
among the people of Ohio with whom he had been 
associated during the three years sojourn, and now 
he was leaving with genuine regret, but with 
brighter hopes for the future than he had ever be- 
fore cherished. He was to return, however, and 
Ohio would be his future home, he told his friends, 
but now his footsteps were turned towards Mercers- 
burg, where the coming years had so much in store 
for him, upon which he reckoned not. 

The following quotation from one of his letters 
well illustrates how thoughtful and observant he 
was as a young man and how keenly he enjoyed 
being " nearer to nature's heart." (May 22, 1842.) 

u We arrived at Wheeling the same day we left 
you, M he writes to one of his Ohio friends. u We 
did not, however, cross the river the same evening, 
as the ferry-boat had laid up for the night. We 
had good luck. We stopped only about an hour in 
Wheeling, and from there we reached my father's 



2 34 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



in five days. Being Saturday evening, we had to 
drive late, as it was after ten o'clock when we 
arrived home. Our journey was generally pleasant, 
though we had some rain on Thursday and Friday. 
Nothing is more unpleasant than to be away on a 
journey on a rainy day. All the other time was fair 
and beautiful. May is the loveliest season for trav- 
eling ; nature in all its richness smiled around us. 
Not only is every field and every plain carpeted 
with green, but nature hangs its beautiful drapery 
on every hill and tree. Flowers and perfume meet 
the sense and fill the heart with feeling, and we are 
made to exclaim in the language of Thompson : 

" ' These as they change, Almighty Father ! these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is full of Thee. Forth in the Spring 
Thy beauty walks. Thy tenderness and love 
Wide flush the fields.' 

u There is every variety of scenery on the road 
from Ohio here. Along the Ohio river is a lovely 
spot. The near banks that enamel the stream are 
shaded by the blossoming Buckeye, and the gentle 
current murmurs by as calm and even as the good 
man's life. Then as you pass along farther east 
you see by the wayside many a little cottage and 
many a lonely cabin — wealth and poverty side by 
side — the lordling and the slave, the oppressor and 
the oppressed are all together and you are led in- 
voluntarily to ask yourself, why this difference? 
and he is a philosopher who solves it aright. 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



135 



" Through the country you see many neat resi- 
dences, some beautiful yards, lovely shade bowers, 
summer houses and green trees — all of which are 
a good index to the character of the inhabitants. 
For where you see such beauty and taste without, 
you may look with confidence for neatness, kind- 
ness, and happiness within. 

" Such persons commune much with nature's 
God. Thus the heart is made better, and it is filled 
with the warmest feelings, which continually flow 
out in rich floods towards God and man. 

" Towards evening of the second day after ycu 
leave Wheeling you get to the commencement of 
the mountains. For about twenty miles before you 
get to them, they appear to the view far in the dis- 
tance, raising their deep blue peaks towards heaven 
in tranquil beauty. Then as you get nearer to 
them they become more distinct, less beautiful, but 
more grand and sublime. The first is the Laurel 
Hill. It is thick with laurels full of flowers, as 
they are in bloom at present. There are also many 
locusts ; they are at this time also full of flowers, 
and as you pass along you are greeted by their loads 
of perfume, which comes to you on every gale. 
From the top of this first mountain is a most lovely 
prospect. Far as the eye can reach lies to view 
the level country westward, interspersed with fields 
and woods, white houses and villages. When we 
were there it was nearly sunset, and as he descended 



136 UFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

in the west in his 'golden car,' a lovely serenity 
spread itself over the face of the country. At last 
the shades of twilight began to settle far off on the 
mountains, and animated nature with her thousand 
insect voices commenced its deep and solemn vesper. 
From Laurel Hill eastward there is nothing but 
mountains for about 130 miles, at the end of which 
is the lovely (Cumberland) valley, one hundred 
miles long and thirty to forty broad, in which Mer- 
cersburg is situated. On the top of the highest 
mountain the leaves were scarcely started, and the 
woodland was bare. I have said that I love moun- 
tain scenery, yet I love not only the mighty and 
sublime in nature, but the lovely and beautiful — 
the gentle, the modest, the chaste. I have loved 
the mountain with all its wildness from my child- 
hood. It has been my intimate companion, and 
all the world, with its pride and follies, seems as 
nothing when my soul rises amid scenes like these. n 
Mercersburg in sixty years has added much to 
her fair fame, but the many affectionate and glow- 
ing tributes to her greatness, sent forth from literary 
hall and banquet board, have not served to lead her 
as a body corporate into any dangerous schemes of 
expansion. In the matter of internal improvements 
the town has kept modest pace with like villages of 
Southern Pennsylvania, but seldom indeed has it 
been found necessary or desirable to extend its bor- 
ough limits. The burgess and town council have 



MARSHALL COUvKGE. 



137 



been all-sufficient in civil administration, and a 
high constable, acting on occasion as special police- 
man, has been the sole executive officer. In 1840 
Mercersburg was a thriving village, commercially 
speaking, and was alive with freight and passengers 
moving east and west. The macadamized road, 
now a turnpike, had already been built and there 
was a coach line from Frederick City, then the ter- 
minus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, by way 
of Hagerstown, Mercersburg, and Bedford to Wheel- 
ing, West Va. This was a successful rival of the 
stage lines running on the National road. Mercers- 
burg was a picturesque place at this time, and while 
many of the old landmarks have long since disap- 
peared, the old taverns with their quaint signs, large 
open stable yards crowded with white covered wag- 
ons and quietly feeding horses, are still within the 
memory of most of the older inhabitants. 

From a purely Scotch-Irish community in 1835, 
Mercersburg has merged into an Anglo- German 
people which is substantially her citizenship to-day. 
The old town has entertained many noted person- 
ages ; it has produced and sent out into the world 
men and women of refinement and education, who 
have made their impress on state and nation. The 
town has grown old and gray and quiet, but it 
shelters many peaceful firesides, and a company of 
gentle-folk with whom it is a rich pleasure to meet. 
One may stand now, as Henry Harbaugh did upon 



1 38 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

the front steps of the seminary in the autumn of 
1840, and contemplate much the same scene. True 
it is that the many green groves which encroached 
so beautifully upon the borders of the village have 
disappeared before the axe of the relentless lumber- 
men ; the wide pasture fields lying between your 
point of view and the town limits have given way 
to the builders, while the slender saplings round 
about the seminary building have sprung up to 
over-top the building itself. 

To one looking westward from this eminence the 
little old town falls into view with its weather- 
beaten shingles and big brick chimneys. Down in 
the foreground of the picture stands the church — 
a large brick structure with a quaint little steeple 
perched on top looking like a tarnished silver thim- 
ble. In front and within the high iron fence, to 
the left as you enter, stands a square block of mar- 
ble which once marked the grave of Dr. Frederick 
A. Rauch. To the right is the grave of Henry 
Harbaugh and a monument erected to his memory 
by the Synod of the Reformed Church. The in- 
terior of this church will be well remembered by 
many a college student — its dusky walls, its pon- 
derous galleries, and the lacquered brass chandelier 
suspended by a long rope from the hub of an im- 
mense wheel frescoed upon the ceiling. Many a 
sultry Sunday morning during the progress of the 
sermon has one of the younger representatives of 




MONUMENT AT THE GRAVE OF DR. HARBAUGH, IN TRINITY CHURCH YARD, 
ERECTED BY THE SYNOD OF THE REFORMED CHURCH. 



MARSHAUv COIvLEGB. 



139 



the congregation rested back in the corner of a pew 
and in fancy fashioned countless pieces of machin- 
ery with this gigantic wheel as a nucleus. Per- 
chance it would be a locomotive engine with train 
of cars attached extending far out into the base-ball 
field, with the whole equipment ten times too big 
ever to get through the tunnel pictured like the 
wheel in massive strokes on the wall behind the 
high white pulpit.* And they who stood in that 
high white pulpit — McCauley the gentle, eloquent 
minister, Brown the faithful pastor who traveled by 
road and mountain in answer to every call of his 
people, those giants of intellect, Schafif, Nevin, 
Higbee, Thomas G. Apple, and so many others — 
all have joined the choir invisible of the sainted 
dead ! These the church will never cease to honor 
and hold in affectionate remembrance. 

But farther to the west there fall into view the 
everlasting hills and the blue mountain background. 
These have better withstood the test of time. 
Scarcely three miles away is a spur of the North 
mountain, curving around like a sheltering arm 
from Mount Parnell on the north to Two-Top on 
the south, with a foreground of rolling farm land 
cut in two by the glistening turnpike which loses 
itself in the windings of the Cove Gap. 

The description of the town most familiar to 

* The interior of this church has been beautifully remodeled in recent 
years. The gallery, high pulpit, and old frescoing are gone. 



140 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



those who have dwelt beneath its classic shades is 
contained in the college catalogue of other days : 
It is u a village of about twelve hundred inhabi- 
tants, situated on the south-western part of Frank- 
lin County, Pa., in the midst of a fertile lime-stone 
region, at a distance of an hour's walk from the 
base of what is called the North mountain. The 
scenery formed by the mountains, which bend 
around it like a vast crescent or amphitheatre, con- 
trasting as it does with the rich open country below, 
is absolutely splendid. " 

Frequent allusion is made elsewhere in these 
pages to the social and educational features of Mer- 
cersburg, and the inclination to introduce further 
description that might be borrowed from various 
sources is therefore suppressed. 

Marshall College, which early in its career was 
termed " the little Dutch College out somewhere 
along the mountains," had a long and hard struggle 
for existence. A peculiar responsibility rested upon 
teacher and pupil alike. Both the college and the 
seminary were one great big home where social in- 
tercourse was unrestricted and where the conveni- 
ences of life such as the institution could then offer 
were enjoyed largely in common. The well was 
always free to him who would carry his pitcher to 
it ; the country around afforded pleasant walks and 
recreation, while the nuts were plentiful in the near 
by woods for all who would gather them. The huge 



MARSHAL!, COLLEGE. 



141 



wood pile with its attendant implements never 
turned anyone away who honestly sought healthful 
exercise. 

When Henry Harbaugh entered his name upon 
the roll of this institution he did it not as an expe- 
dient, not merely as a means to some good end ; 
not alone as a preparation for the calling in life that 
seemed to him so many weary years ahead. But 
rather his enlistment was for life. He regarded him- 
self as surely adopted and the spirit of the institu- 
tion in some mysterious manner became his spirit ; 
the impulse which his mind received in these plas- 
tic years of his life, in a great degree determined 
the current of his after history. He accepted the 
guardian care and benefits, and assumed the respon- 
sibilities of a child of the institution. 

The early students of Marshall College, with but 
few exceptions, realized these things — that from the 
broken and withered bough no fruit could fall 
within the shadow of the parent tree ; that any liv- 
ing branch cut off and separated from the body of 
the tree could bring forth no fruit of its kind. And 
it were well for men of a later generation could 
they awaken to the truth that he who wilfully and 
permanently severs himself from the life of his alma 
mater, thereby proves himself false to the memory 
of those noble men who gave their best years, yea, 
their very lives, against odds that this college might 
live and her light continue to shine among men. 



142 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



The present writer deems himself fortunate in 
having the following masterly summary of the status 
of our church and institutions of learning in the 
year 1840. Dr. Theodore Appel, in his Life and 
Work of John Williamson Nevin, D.D M LL.D., 
says : 

' ' The Reformed Synod met in the later part of Octo- 
ber, 1840, at Greencastle, Pa., not far from Mercers- 
burg, and about the same distance from Chambersburg, 
where the editors of the church papers and most of the 
church treasurers resided. All parts of the denomina- 
tion were well represented, the advisory members, of 
whom Dr. Nevin was one, being about as numerous as 
those that were regular delegates. Rev. Bernard C. 
Wolff was chosen to preside. A general feeling of 
hopefulness and confidence seemed to predominate, 
which presented a strong contrast to what prevailed in 
some of the preceding synods, especially in one that 
was held in Philadelphia in 1839. The dark clouds 
which had hung over the church, and over the seminary 
in particular, had in a measure passed away, and better 
times seemed to be looming up under the blue sky of 
hope. The action of the synod at Chambersburg in 
the election of a new theological professor (Nevin) was 
heartily approved. 

"The matter of holding a Centennial Celebration 
during the following year occupied much of the time of 
the synod and every member seemed anxious to give it 
as wide and useful a range as possible. In reliance 
upon Almighty God, the year 1841, therefore, was set 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



143 



apart as a solemn festival of thanksgiving, prayer, and 
praise ; sermons and historical discourses were to be 
delivered, the churches were to bring their thank-offer- 
ings to the Lord, and to unite in raising $100,000 at 
least for its struggling schools of learning, missions, 
beneficiary education, or other objects ; subscription 
books were to be opened in all the pastoral charges, 
containing separate columns for each specific object ; 
the brethren in the West were invited to unite in the 
celebration At Mercersburg a very en- 
thusiastic meeting had been held under the direction of 
classis, at which quite a number of generous contribu- 
tions were made. Dr. Rauch pledged himself for $500 
and Dr. Budd for the same amount. Others in the 
congregation and on the outside subscribed liberally. 
The ladies in the Presbyterian congregation had nearly 
raised the money for a $500 scholarship in Marshall 
College ; on the Reformed side the ladies were trying 
to do the same thing, and twenty students in the insti- 
tutions had engaged to raise $25 each in five years to 
complete a scholarship of their own. Dr. Nevin gave 
$1000 for himself and family, which was probably the 
largest amount contributed during the centenary year.' ' 

This was the enthusiastic condition of affairs at 
the time Henry Harbaugh entered college. At 
that time the alumni could number barely twenty 
members, but where numbers lacked there was 
plenty of energy and hope for the institution. 

But just at this time Dr. Rauch fell sick and it 
was realized among his closest friends that he had 



144 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



not long to live. He was young in years but frail 
of body, and had no doubt overtaxed his mental 
and physical energies in the work of Marshall Col- 
lege and the Seminary, on which his heart was set. 
He died March 2, 1841, and was laid to rest in the 
grave yard of the college at the southern end of 
Mercersburg, where his body rested until its re- 
moval to Lancaster in March, 1859. 

From the foregoing it will be observed that Henry 
Harbaugh's entry at Marshall College was only a 
few months prior to the death of its first president, 
and he had, therefore, very brief personal contact 
with Dr. Rauch as a teacher. But Dr. Nevin had 
been sent to the relief of the college and seminary 
in the declining days of Dr. Rauch, and was then 
already asking the people of the German Reformed 
Church through the press, the pulpit, and the class 
room, whether they were willing to see the church 
merged into other religious systems, or whether 
they would unite to sustain it as it was and allow it 
to grow in its own historical life. Dr. Rauch was 
laid in his grave in March, 1841, but Mercersburg 
theology had already awakened and was wielding 
its influence in the formative period of what has 
since come to be the Reformed Church in the United 
States. During these and after years many of the 
fathers of the church had their good part in weld- 
ing and forging the system of theology which con- 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



145 



trols the cultus and economy of our rapidly grow- 
ing branch of the visible church. 

Henry Harbaugh was now coming near to what 
he had long wished for. He had a modest sum 
stored up for expenses of the first year at least ; 
and what was far more important than that, his 
honored father was beginning to apprehend the true 
bent of his son's mind, and there was no longer 
the feeling in the heart of the young student that 
he was doing and living against the will of a con- 
scientious but mistaken parent. He was well 
pleased with the college. He had found a pleasant 
boarding place at a very modest price and had be- 
gun to study. To a correspondent in Ohio he thus 
unburdens himself: 

' ' I like the college well. Of course thus far I have 
not much enjoyed myself, being altogether strange. I 
pay $1.87 per week boarding, and the tuition is from 
ten to eighteen dollars per session. There are about 
125 to 130 students. I am studying at present Latin 
and Greek only. Greek is hard — more so than plan- 
ing logs or boating on the ice. The college course is 
four years. Probably I will not take a full course. 
Your letter found me in good health, but I cannot say 
in good spirits, for I was exceedingly depressed in mind 
about the time it made its appearance.' ' 

Early in January, 1841, in an affectionate letter 
to his father, he relates in detail the circumstances 



I4 6 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

of the fire which destroyed the building in which 
the preparatory school was held. 

"I am getting along tolerably well with my 
studies," he writes. "I intend to commence to 
study the German language on Monday, as I con- 
sider it wrong for me to keep studying other things 
of less importance before I know the language in 
which I was raised better. I will study the German 
with Professor Good. He is a good German scholar 
and fond of teaching it. I do not know that I can 
come home again before spring. I would like to see 
any of the folks at any time. Probably if snow comes, 
some of you will pay me a visit, and if so I hope 
you will not forget to put some of the good apples 
in the box. " He received the candles that had been 
made for him at home, and he hoped some one 
would take a sleigh ride and bring the German dic- 
tionary along up. 

With the same diligence that had characterized 
his student life at the New Hagerstown Academy, 
Ohio, he availed himself of all the means of im- 
provement that were to be found at Marshall Col- 
lege. He became a member of the literary society, 
which was conducted in the German language, and 
also one of the rival English societies. In Die 
Deutsche Literarische Gesellschaft he found oppor- 
tunity to supplement his study of the German lan- 
guage, to exercise in the sound German words, and 
to become more fluent in the use of them. Criti- 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



147 



cism on the part of the various members was un- 
sparing, and Henry Harbaugh was severely brought 
to frequently on account of his tendency to drift 
into the use of the Pennsylvania-German dialect — 
the language of his home. 

He became a member of the Diagnothian Liter- 
ary Society, in which English was used, and around 
which much of the charm of college life lay for 
him. Of his entrance into it Dr. Theodore Appel 
speaks as follows : 

' ' We were on intimate terms during his course of 
studies at Mercersburg, and had many interesting con- 
versations together. He joined the same literary 
society to which we then belonged in 1841 , and took his 
seat as a full-grown man, already twenty-four years old, 
when all the rest of us were his juniors. He sat and 
listened for a while, but looked as if his thoughts were 
somewhere else, rather absent minded ; and it was not 
thought that there was anything special in him, or that 
anything special would come out of him. On one occa- 
sion, however, when he was called on to read a compo- 
sition, he got up and recited a very beautiful little 
poem, full of tenderness and pathos, something very 
remarkable in the circumstances, and very surprising 
to his fellow members. The wonder was where this 
rural addition to the society had found such thoughts 
and such words. At once he rose up as one of our 
brightest stars, and we were all of us very proud of 
him. The poem has been published in several periodi- 



I4 8 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

cals, and has always been admired, notwithstanding its 
want of polish in several respects." 

Dr. Appel further, speaking of the tendencies of 
some young students of that day, declares again 
the doubt that existed as to Henry Harbaugh's fu- 
ture, " but as for Henry Harbaugh — afterwards 
author and professor of theology, no less than a 
powerful preacher of righteousness — it was a doubt- 
ful case whether he would come to anything at all 
in the ministry. He was free spoken and had very 
little of cant about him. Both he and his ances- 
tors were genuine Swiss, and could not be anything 
else but Reformed. Henry, however, was not be- 
hind anybody on the subject of temperance or 
slavery, just as afterwards he never lagged in the 
rear on the question of the Union." 

While Henry was thus observed by his fellow 
students, it would be a mistake to suppose that he 
was not also one of the observers. His estimates 
are in several instances recorded. One fellow, he 
remarks, u is a bright genius. He can learn con- 
siderably more in two days than in one. He appears 
to feel the full force of being at college. It will take 
him about a session to find out that he knows 
nothing. n . . . u Suppose you come up some one 
of these Saturdays, n he writes to his brother 
George, u and I will make you a present of a copy 
of Dr. Rauch's Psychology — the book the man 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



149 



wrote who died last spring, and that will pay you 
for your ride. I would like to have a talk with 
you. You have a horse to ride, but when I come 
home I have to walk." 

It was thus that the homesickness betrayed itself 
in nearly every letter the young student w r rote. He 
longed to get back to the old stone house — to the 
little sleeping room — out into the orchard where he 
could awaken the echo, and hear the " Little Man 
in the barn" call back to him. But there was much 
to occupy his mind now, and he found so much en- 
couragement in the progress of his first year's work 
at Marshall College that he was able to say to one 
of his friends : 

' ' You tell me in your letter that you find a great deal 
of enjoyment in reading. If you find a pleasure in it 
now, you will in after life — find, not only the pleasure 
continued, but it will be the cause of drawing smiles 
upon your pathway. It will serve to light up each 
joyless hour with a serenity of mind and a self-existent 
joy of heart, that can only be known by those who feel it. 
There are hours — lonely hours — that every one is called 
to pass, at one time or another, and sorrows that no one 
can evade, but how much easier are they borne by the 
mind that is fortified by education, and which finds in 
itself a resting place when all around is turbulent and 
black with storms of sorrow. You say you are almost 
discouraged trying to get an education. It is true that 
you are put to inconvenience by there being no school 
there, but you must not let this discourage you. You 



i5o 



IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



can read, and, as you say, study at home, and if you 
read as you say you do, two volumes a week, you will 
improve much until spring. And no doubt some time 
you will get an opportunity, and the more you accus- 
tom yourself to habits of study, privately, so much 
the greater will be your advantages when you get to 
school hereafter." 

In the midst of his studies, he found time for some 
practical theology and pastoral work. Towards the 
close of his second year at Mercersburg, he wrote : 

' ' I got my cold by walking to the country to address 
a Sunday-school. I got into a perspiration while I was 
in the house and then took cold when I came out. I 
have established a Bible class about two miles from 
town among the young folks of the country. They 
are very attentive and take a great interest in it. I 
meet them on every Sunday afternoon at half-past 
three o'clock. The class is composed of about fifteen 
young persons, and is still increasing. I expect to 
have an interesting class and, by the help of God, to 
do some good among them." 

Probably the first service of a public character 
which he performed was on the occasion of the 
death of his uncle in " Harbaugh's Valley," in 
December, 1842. Jacob Harbaugh had been an 
exemplary member of the Reformed Church, an 
elder in the congregation at his home for many 
years, and had reached an advanced age. Henry 
Harbaugh was present at his funeral, and circum- 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



151 



stances were such that no minister was able to 
attend. The young theological student offered a 
prayer and sang a hymn at the house. 

Henry preached his first sermon in the " Little 
Cove," ten or twelve miles from Mercersburg. He 
and his room mate, Mr. Lesher, were there by in- 
vitation in the last week in December, 1842. They 
were kindly received with the well-known hospi- 
tality that exists for travelers and strangers unto 
this day in that little valley. He preached upon the 
text u It is finished," and spoke for about fifty -five 
minutes — not an unusual length for a sermon fifty 
years ago. 

These homilies from the seminary, and the serv- 
ices attendant, were well received, patiently listened 
to, and piously joined in by the people ; and it came 
to be an event of more than ordinary interest in the 
various settlements, " when the students came down 
to preach." The reverence with which these young 
men conducted the services, and the ardor and en- 
thusiasm which accompanied their discourses, ap- 
pealed strongly to these people. If at times theology 
and botany prevailed too largely over religion and 
flowers in the sermonizing, nevertheless the influ- 
ences of Rauch, Nevin, Schaff, and others per- 
vaded it all, and rendered it a condition of amateur 
preaching not so directly given to other communi- 
ties. 



152 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



A short time after his experience in the " Little 
Cove," Henry Harbaugh replied to one of his 
friends in Ohio : 

" You asked if I was embarrassed when I preached. 
I was not. I felt perfectly composed. I have to 
preach again on Sunday evening, the 4th of February, 
about two miles from town, in a little village." 

Another engagement which was nearer to his 
heart than all else in Mercersburg, was the little 
singing class which he had organized in connection 
with his leadership of the Reformed Church choir. 
Only a few months before leaving the seminary in 
the autumn of 1843, he wrote : 

"This afternoon about three o'clock I visited the 
1 Juvenile Female Sewing Society ' of Mercersburg, of 
which I am an honorary member. Perhaps I told you 
before of this society. It consists of young girls 
about 12 years of age. They sew little things, the 
profit of which is devoted to missionary purposes. 
They have already between four and five dollars of 
money. I like to encourage them, so I visit them fre- 
quently. They meet every Saturday afternoon. They 
are also my singing class. I took them a watermelon 
this afternoon. It was a large and excellent one. 
They were much pleased and we had a great feast. 
They are improving beyond all my expectations, and I 
intend to hold a concert this fall before I^leave. We 
are at present practising tunes for it and I think we 
will have a crowded audience. I, do not like to part 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



153 



with my class and they do not like to part with me, but 
so it must be. It is harder to leave this class than any 
thing else I have found in Mercersburg. ' ' 

At the anniversary exercises of the Diagnothian 
Literary Society, held July 4th, 1842, he was on 
the progam with Theodore Appel, John Cessna, 
William P. Schell, and others. The last part on 
the order of exercises, was : u Oration — The Tomb 
of Washington, Henry Harbaugh of Ohio." At 
this time he thought very seriously of again inter- 
rupting his course of study to teach for a term at 
Waynesboro. Dr. Nevin then gave him the follow- 
ing certificate : 

' ' Mr. Henry Harbaugh has been in connection with 
the Theological Seminary of the German Reformed 
Synod, as a student of theology, since last fall ; having 
previously prapared himself for college in the Prepara- 
tory department. He bears an excellent character, as 
a Christian man and a student, and I can readily recom- 
mend him as one likely to give satisfaction as a teacher 
in the situation for which he proposes to apply at 
Waynesboro." 

He did not accept the appointment, however, 
and that fall entered again upon his regular studies 
at Mercersburg. Altogether he spent three years 
in succession at Marshall College and the Seminary, 
the first year entirely in the college and the remain- 
ing two partly in the college and partly in the 



154 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



seminary. To the regular theological course he 
added what he could from the college. His course 
was, therefore, not regular, and he did not gradu- 
ate, as he then considered his youth pretty well 
gone and his funds small. He thought, and was 
so advised by others, that he might be useful in the 
ministry with a partial course. " It is not so much 
human learning that God will bless as the one thing 
needful," he wrote, " though that is not to be de- 
spised, and I pray that it may be increased." 

But his mental equipment at this time, and also 
when he entered the active work of the ministry 
one year later, was better than he knew. Where 
he had crowded time and had interwoven the col- 
lege and seminary courses of study, he had also 
marshaled his mental powers and trained them to 
do his bidding in a systematic and logical way. 
Thirst for knowledge and an unyielding perseve- 
rance in pursuit of it, were his substitutes for 
opportunity and time. At each recurring vacation 
time his thoughts seemed to turn towards teaching. 
Early in life he had grasped the idea of improving 
his own mind and imparting knowledge to others 
at the same time. He regretted that there were so 
many teachers who had neither appreciated their 
advantages nor felt their responsibilities. He be- 
lieved that a school teacher ought to be first of all 
a Christian, one who would exert a moral influence 



MARSHALL COLLEGE. 



155 



and cast heavenly seed on the sunny fields of child- 
hood, which growing up might be for the glory of 
God in eternal ages. He advocated the organiza- 
tion of libraries in every school house, and was 
personally instrumental in starting one at the Am- 
sterdam school house near his old home. This 
was while he was at the seminary in Mercers- 
burg in 1843. Dr. Traill Green, then teacher of 
natural sciences, accompanied him to his home 
below Waynesboro and made an address to the 
children and people gathered at the school house, 
in the interest of such a library. Within a few 
weeks thereafter they had 170 volumes and the 
promise of many more, and it was already doing 
wonders for the young folks. 

In August, 1843, he said : " I love the institution 
and its professors as well as many of the students. 
With the citizens of the town I have very little 
communication, only so far as I am thrown among 
them in the common relations of life." 

From this time forward he bent his energies 
harder than ever towards the completion of his 
course in the seminary. He was becoming unduly 
anxious to enter the active work of the ministry, 
and was urged all the more in this direction by 
reason of the fact that his venerable father, though 
willing now to assist him, found himself unable to 
do so because of severe financial losses. 



I5 6 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

In the autumn of 1843, therefore, he completed 
his course in the seminary and left Mercersburg, 
bearing with him the warm personal friendship of 
Dr. Nevin and others of the faculty, and the good 
wishes of many friends he had made while there. 



V. TWENTY YEARS IN THE MINISTRY. 

^HE REV. HENRY HARBAUGH, as he may 
^^ now be called, found that there were many 
vacant charges in Pennsylvania. Ohio was also a 
promising mission field at that time for the Re- 
formed Church. He visited a number of places in 
Maryland and Virginia and preached during the 
autumn of 1843. From some of them he received 
calls, Westminster, Md., and Meadville, Pa., being 
among those which he seriously considered. The 
mode of travel to the various places was slow and 
expensive, and while he visited and preached for a 
number of congregations, he did not finally decide 
upon a field of labor until after the meeting of 
synod at Winchester, Va., where he received his 
authority to preach. As to one of his journeys to 
preach in Maryland he speaks as follows : "I left 
Mercersburg on Saturday in the stage to Green- 
castle — 10 miles, and from there I went to Hagers- 
town, Md., the same day in the rail-cars. It is a 
beautiful way of traveling. We went nine miles 
in a half hour. It looks singular to see a steam 
locomotive with a train of cars moving over the 
country { like a thing of life' and at so fast a rate. 
Now it runs fast over an even plain, now it winds 
round a hill, and now it shoots into a deep cut, and 



158 MFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

then out again, and so on, puffing and blowing like 
a great monster. May it not be that some day you 
will ride on it?" 

Before going to the session of synod, he went 
back to his old home, where, in accordance with a 
previous arrangement with the pastor, Mr. Philips, 
at Jacob's Church, in " Harbaugh's Valley," he 
assisted in the series of services leading up to the 
celebration of the Holy Communion. From Thurs- 
day until the following Monday he preached nine 
times at the old stone church. Several of his ser- 
mons were in the German language. Seven years 
before — brief ones they seemed to him now — he 
had gone away from the mill of his uncle Elias and 
had taken his departure from his ancestral home to 
" fulfil his designs. " Now he was standing among 
his relatives and friends of former years, preaching 
to them the word of God. It was a trying time, 
no doubt, but the warm reception of his friends, 
and the scenes of his youth, acted as a blessed in- 
spiration, and the occasion gave him the coveted 
opportunity to sweep away any feeling of prejudice 
that might be lingering against the boy, Unser 
Heinrich. 

Harbaugh's Valley was first settled by the three 
Harbaugh brothers — L,udwig, George, and Jacob, 
in the year 1760. They came from the Kreutz 
creek settlement in York County, Pa., as has been 
stated elsewhere in this volume. Previous to the 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



159 



year 1822 they worshiped at Apple's Church, near 
what is now Thurmont, Md., and owing to the 
scarcity of ministers, had their services, for a great 
part of the time, only every four or eight weeks on 
Thursday instead of Sunday. Jacob's congregation 
was organized by the Rev. David Bassler, then 
pastor of the Emmittsburg charge, and the stone 
church was erected in 1823. ^ n later times it has 
come to be called St. Jacob's Church by what Dr. 
Cort terms " a strange misnomer." "After seventy- 
five years," said the present pastor, the Rev. Dr. 
Cyrus Cort, " it stands forth strong and beautiful 
in its simplicity, an enduring monument to the 
heroic faith and piety of the Reformed fathers and 
mothers who reared it in the midst of the primeval 
forest." These words were uttered on the occasion 
of the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary 
of the building of the church — September 24, 1898. 

Upon the conclusion of the services in which the 
Rev. Henry Harbaugh took part at Jacob's Church, 
he repaired to Winchester, Va., where he was 
licensed to preach by the synod October, 17, 1843. 

He accepted an urgent invitation to go to Lewis- 
burg, Pa. , to preach for the people with a view of 
becoming their pastor. The former pastor had 
resigned owing to his inability to preach in the 
German language, and the people were rejoiced at 
the prospect of having a minister. Mr. Harbaugh' s 
impressions of the town and country were very 



!6o LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

favorable. He pronounced it a beautiful place, 
and the people received him with a warmth and 
kindness that never abated in the least during his 
seven years' pastorate among them. 

The charge was made up of two congregations, 
one at Lewisburg and the other six miles in the 
country. To the country congregation he preached 
altogether in English. In town German and Eng- 
lish alternately every other Sunday. He entered 
upon his work without delay. In addition to the 
services mentioned above, he conducted a weekly 
lecture and prayer meeting, and the Sunday-school. 
He started a Bible class with an attendance of 34 
members. He received a salary of $300 a year 
from this charge, but within the first year of his 
pastorate the Milton congregation was added, and 
he also served several other points in an irregular 
manner, and his salary was increased proportion- 
ately. Nevertheless, he had a rather meagre in- 
come, but his people were kind and they manifested 
their approval of his labors frequently in a substan- 
tial way. He began his ministry in December, 1843, 
and was ordained on the 24th of January following. 
He found Lewisburg to be a town of considerable 
size, pleasantly located on the west branch of the 
Susquehanna river, about ten miles above the 
forks. It is in the historic Buffalo Valley in cen- 
tral Pennsylvania, amid fertile farm lands, bounded 
by the Blue mountains in the distance. 




HENRY HARBAUGH AT THE AGE OP 35 YEARS. FROM DAGUERREOTYPE TAKEN IN 1852. 



IN THE MINISTRY. j6i 

After accepting the call he paid a visit to his old 
friends in Ohio, and on December 14, 1843, was 
united in marriage with Miss Louisa Goodrich, of 
New Hagerstown, Carroll County, Ohio, whose 
acquaintance he had made in his early life at the 
New Hagerstown Academy. This union lasted 
until the summer of 1847, when the companion of 
his youth, while on a visit with him to the home 
of her parents in the West, was stricken with fever 
and died, September 26. 

The people of Lewisburg charge had been labor- 
ing under the disadvantage of worshiping in com- 
mon with the Lutherans in a so-called Union 
church, which prevented them from having services 
oftener than every other Sunday. The young pas- 
tor saw at once the many inconveniences arising 
from a system of this kind to both the minister 
and his people, and efforts were put forth at once 
to establish a church exclusively Reformed. This 
was not fully accomplished, however, until 1847, 
when a substantial brick church was erected to the 
service and honor of God. The result thus attained 
was in a large measure due to the energy and zeal 
of the young pastor. 

The practical work of the ministry was a revela- 
tion to him. After all his experience in the world 
of mental and physical labor ; after his painstaking 
course in practical and theoretical theology, he 
assumed the pastoral charge of this little flock of 



T 6 2 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

God's people in fear and trembling. Of the reality 
of his call to the work he had never any doubt. He 
felt that the way leading from his confirmation in 
1836, to his ordination to the ministry in 1844, had 
been hard, and that his efforts had been conscien- 
tious, and yet, while on the threshold of the life 
which he had so earnestly longed for, he confessed 
that he was inefficient and yet groping in the dark 
in many things that concerned his Master's king- 
dom. His services at the altar, in the pulpit, and 
his ministrations among the people at their homes 
were not in accordance with the plans which he had 
pondered over beforehand. The outer world had a 
chilling effect on the church. His people were per- 
verse at times, over-zealous as to one branch of the 
church work and coldly indifferent to another. The 
young parson himself often allowed trifles to vex 
him, and permitted responsibilities that did not 
properly belong to him to lie heavily upon his 
heart ; so that at times he was moody and so lack- 
ing in grace as to be ready to exclaim : " Oh, who 
is sufficient to be a faithful minister of God in sea- 
son and out of season !" 

The young pastor was a good listener to what 
laymen had to say. His good humor kept all dis- 
couragements and moods in the background. His 
sense of despondency was not intruded upon his 
people. His periods of mental depression were 
fought out for the most part at his desk, and his 



IN THE MINISTRY. ^3 

trials of faith were sustained by prayer. With 
persons from abroad who wished to enlist his sym- 
pathies, or perhaps tempt him with books he could 
not afford to buy, he exercised marvelous patience, 
and he soon learned to close off in a manner void 
of offense that peculiar class of people who essayed 
to entertain him with long stories on short subjects. 
The work which he laid out to do admitted of no 
waste places in the flight of time. 

He was eager for work, open to suggestions of 
others, and keenly observant of the lives and plans 
of his own people and of the community at large. 
Whenever opportunity afforded he attended services 
at the several churches of the town, and, though 
not openly critical, he found much to reflect upon 
for his own benefit. He did not approve of preach- 
ing on a subject when the people were in agitation 
upon it. He early observed the danger of sensa- 
tionalism, and his tendency in the pulpit w 7 as away 
from the questions of the day towards the simple 
word of God. A most striking exception in this, 
however, was on the subject of temperance, in 
which he was most persistent and uncompromising 
for the greater part of his early ministry. 

Preaching, he considered, ought to be plain and 
to the point ; and a preacher, like other men, when 
he has nothing to say, ought to say nothing. He 
disliked argument when entered into merely for its 
own sake, but polemics for a purpose grew upon 



T 6^ UFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

him, and he became proficient and formidable on 
the floor of synod. 

He avoided disputes with his fellow-townsmen 
when he found them ignorant of the subject under 
discussion. He encountered considerable difficulty 
with the prevailing Unitarian sentiment and also 
with certain persons who urged upon him the dis- 
cussion of the " Anxious Bench M exposition then 
lately published from the pen of Dr. Nevin. He 
was dismayed by the display of shallow thinking 
upon this and kindred subjects, and failed to appre- 
ciate the humor of one disputant, who sagely as- 
serted that Dr. Nevin had given it the wrong 
name, inasmuch as the " bench is never anxious. M 

He deplored the lack of discipline in the congre- 
gation as he found it, and often regretted on Mon- 
day that he had spoken so severely to his people 
the previous day. He grieved over the lack of 
unity in the church at large, and, in this respect, 
he assumed a burden of thought which no one man 
is called upon to bear. In later years, though with 
unabated zeal in the work of the church, he 
looked upon God alone as the power that could 
heal her divisions. 

He discovered that it required a great deal of res- 
olution to carry forward regular studies where there 
was so much interruption and so many circum- 
stances to intrude upon him. He could study well 
when walking in the country or along the river 



IN THE MINISTRY. T £ 5 

bank. He could always learn a good lesson in con- 
versation with children, and on one occasion when 
he had found it hard to persuade a boy that birds 
like to live, he observed that " one seed in the 
young mind is worth ten in the old." At times 
his sermons, prepared with a great deal of labor 
and conscientious effort, seemed to be dull and un- 
profitable, while after a time of restlessness and 
inability to command the powers of his mind, he 
would preach with ease and feel that the effect had 
been good. He believed that the best pulpit elo- 
quence was when the truth was brought fairly to 
the conscience. He thought that a pastor must 
not expect the people to lead him in any profitable 
exercise ; he must lead them. 

He found the German language difficult, espe- 
cially in sermonizing, and once in a while his ser- 
mon was made singularly emphatic by a little 
hesitation and then the introduction of a broad, 
crisp Anglo-Saxon word in place of the German 
one that could not be recalled. After ten years of 
pulpit experience and no small amount of transla- 
ting of the German language, he still found it 
something of an effort to preach the German, and 
a welcome relief to resort to English. 

He found it not good to be in all kinds of company 
when intending to preach, and he could preach best 
when he went direct from his study to the pulpit. 
This indicates a difficulty which many ministers 



!66 hl^n OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

have in fairly balancing the duties of pastoral visit- 
ation and public services in the house of God. 

But with all the little frictions incident to a first 
pastorate, and with the grace to calmly accept them, 
which comes of experience, Henry Harbaugh grew 
very fond of his little flock. While he pursued 
his work with unabated vigor and stood up for right 
as he saw it without compromise, the relation of 
himself and his people rose to a pure glow of affec- 
tion. This is well indicated in his reply to a sug- 
gestion that he should accept another charge in the 
spring of 1847 : 

' ( I can see no reason why I should leave these peo- 
ple. I believe I have their confidence, and am, under 
God, useful to them. My salary is not near so large as 
that of which you speak, and scarcely large enough to 
support me as a minister ought to be supported, but 
this is not so much of a consideration. The charge is 
small, new. and my salary is every year increasing. It 
is because the charge you speak of gives more that I 
am fearful of giving the least encouragement, lest it 
might be the impulse of a wrong spirit. 

' ' Whether my qualifications are such as would meet 
the case you represent, I cannot say. That must be 
learned from another source. This, though, is what I 
can say in reply to your friendly epistle : Accept my 
thanks for any concern you have manifested in my wel- 
fare. May God make it plain. I will not leave Lewis- 
burg until God makes me leave ; that is, until He 
makes it so plain as that it shall not be possible for me 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



167 



to mistake it. And this He will do if it be His will that 
I shall go," 

The thoughtless jibes of the public press upon 
this subject need no refutation, but if they did, such 
words as the foregoing ought to suffice among 
thoughtful people. They are but the words of one 
recording the actions of the many faithful, con- 
scientious servants of God. 

The call to which the above paragraph is a reply, 
set forth the facts that one of the most important 
of our churches was about to become vacant, that 
there was but the one congregation, for which a 
minister would be required who could preach in 
both languages — u one who could preach a good 
practical, doctrinal sermon (a Heidelberg Catechism 
man)" — one who could preach u a common sense 
three-quarter of an hour sermon so that any Penn- 
sylvania-German can understand it" — one who 
would " visit the sick, and every family of his 
flock once or twice at least during the year — a sys- 
tematic, pastoral visit." The compensation was to 
be $500 or perhaps $600 — " no horse or conveyance 
required." 

It was to this part of the communication the 
following words of the reply refer : " Whether my 
qualifications are such as would meet the case you 
represent, I cannot say." 

Among the pleasant and encouraging features of 
his life at Lewisburg were the visits of Drs. SchaflF 



1 68 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

and Nevin and other ministers of the church, with 
whom he took great delight in conversing, and who 
preached for him frequently. Thus he could keep 
in touch with the institutions of learning, and keep 
himself informed of the great activities of the 
church and of the best thought of its men of light 
and leading. 

One of the brightest hours of his weekly labor 
was the meeting of the Sunday-school teachers. 
Here his love of teaching found its true response ; 
here also lay his best opportunity to do lasting 
work. With such a devoted, faithful, and thor- 
oughly unselfish portion of his flock before him, he 
knew that an influence would be wielded and good 
seed be sown for a fruitful harvest. This training of 
the teachers he placed second in importance only to 
the course of instruction in the catechism for those 
who were looking towards confirmation to the 
church. To this catechetical class he was con- 
stantly devoted, and those who were confirmed in 
the course of his ministry were most deeply im- 
pressed with the solemnity and earnestness of his 
final words to them. The final examination of his 
catechumens was usually held before the consistory 
and a good part of the congregation. 

He began early to write articles for the Messenger. 
He prepared the first prologue for the anniversary 
of the Diagnothian Literary Society of Marshall 
College in 1845, an< ^ ' in that year wrote and deliv- 



IN THE MINISTRY. ^9 

ered a sermon to his people on the subject of heaven. 
This afterwards became one of a series of sermons 
which were rewritten and became his first published 
volume — u The Sainted Dead." His tendency in 
preparing sermons was to run into serials and his 
mid-weekly lectures partook of that character for 
the most part. 

Early in the summer of 1847 he set out with wife 
and little daughter, Mary, to visit Ohio. They 
made the journey in easy stages by horse and car- 
riage. The young pastor was in good spirits, and 
after an exceptionally hard year's work, was eager 
for the freedom of a vacation, and delighted with 
the prospect of a leisurely trip through the moun- 
tains of Western Pennsylvania. He was leaving 
his people in peace. The work of his pastorate had 
prospered. The new church project was then well 
under way. The corner stone had been laid on 
May 7, in the presence of a large concourse of peo- 
ple. Dr. J. W. Nevin had been present and 
preached the sermon. Subscriptions to the new 
church had been raised to the amount of $1,600 
with but a few days of canvassing. Everything 
seemed favorable for a good rest in travel and at the 
home of Mrs. Harbaugh in Ohio. The one sad 
stroke upon them at this time was the death of their 
second child, a daughter who died just two days be- 
fore the occasion of the laying of the corner stone, 
aged only eighteen days. At one place where they 



170 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



remained over night in their travels west there had 
been scarlet fever among the children of the house- 
hold. This fact was discovered only after it was 
too late to adopt any precautions, and soon after 
their arrival in New Hagerstown, Ohio, Mrs. Har- 
baugh took sick with a virulent attack of scarlet 
fever which was complicated with rheumatism, 
from which she never recovered. After a few 
weeks of intense suffering she slept in death, Sep- 
tember 26, 1847, aged twenty-three years and three 
months. She was buried there among the friends 
of her childhood, and the sad homecoming of the 
young man with his little daughter may be much 
better imagined than described. Very touching 
indeed was the sympathy shown by his people at 
Lewisburg, and he at once resumed his duties among 
them with mind turned more solemnly than ever 
to the contemplation of the life beyond the grave. 
He was an interested observer and student of 
public questions. He did not like practical poli- 
tics, and could not abide the unstudied and careless 
speeches of the hustings. He often attended dis- 
cussions of a political character, however, and 
during the forties was inclining in his political 
faith towards the movement which afterwards crys- 
talized into the Republican party. In July, 1848, 
writing to his brother, he made the following preg- 
nant and prophetic utterance : 



IN THE MINISTRY. T ji 

1 ' There is a powerful anti-slavery spirit getting up. 
I would not be surprised if the candidate to be taken 
up at Buffalo (Van Buren) in August would succeed. 
May God grant it. If he does not, then in 1852 we 
will have two parties, thus, ' Slavery and anti-slavery/ 
then the Union will be divided. It cannot stand, it 
will not stand six years longer, unless the current of 
our country's history will take a sudden turn. We 
are now going towards a split fast and far. However, 
* God who sitteth in the heavens will laugh/ and His 
kingdom will rise with even new power and freshness 
out of the wrecks of re volution.' ' 

The Free-soil party failed to receive even one 
electoral vote, in 1848, but events did take a sudden 
turn in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
which aroused Lincoln and other leading men of 
the nation to the organization of the Republican 
party. And in 1858, Lincoln uttered a prophecy 
similar to the one quoted above, though on a public 
and momentous occasion, and more nearly in the 
fulness of time : 

1 ' A house divided against itself cannot stand. I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to 
be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall ; but I 
do expect that it will cease to be divided . . . . ' ' 

Having built and dedicated a new church at 
Lewisburg, and having built the congregation up 
in membership and influence in the community, 



172 



UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



the Rev. Henry Harbaugh, after much deliberation, 
felt constrained to accept a call to the First Re- 
formed Church, Lancaster, Pa. It was with great 
regret that he gave up his first pastorate. The ties 
were stronger than ever now for the reason that he 
had married Mary Louisa Linn, whose home was in 
Lewisburg, on November 14, 1848. 

In March, 1850, he took up his work at Lancas- 
ter. His pastorate there proved to be the busiest 
ten years of his life. He edited The Guardian, a 
monthly magazine which he had started at Lewis- 
burg in January, 1850, finished the second volume 
of his work on the future state, " Heavenly Recog- 
nition, " and prepared the " Sainted Dead" for a 
third edition during the first year at Lancaster. 
He also prepared for publication " The Fathers of 
the Reformed Church, " "The Palatinate Cate- 
chism," " Union with the Church," " The Birds of 
the Bible," " Life of Michael Schlatter," and much 
other work which will be referred to more at length 
in a subsequent chapter. 

From such busy scenes as these Dr. Harbaugh 
would sometimes flee to the mountains or to some 
place in the country with a friend or two for recre- 
ation. To his friend Dr. Bailsman he wrote in the 
mid-summer of 1857 : 

"You preached last Sunday on the childlike in 
Christ. So did I in the evening. At least a good part 
of my sermon was on that. I preached on Christian 



IN THE) MINISTRY. 



173 



cheerfulness, perhaps suggested by your remark on 
Ward Beecher's sermon. My idea was that the Chris- 
tian is the childlike, and the childlike is the cheerful. 
A child is often vexed, fretful, &c, but never sad. If 
sad, then morbid. I agree with you that we may well 
wish to be children again. That is a bright spot that 
comes but once in life. As we get older we are forced 
to fence off the world on account of its untrue charac- 
ter, and with it banish the heaven that lies about us in 
our infancy. 

"You banter me in your letter to spend a vacation 
with you. Well, Bro. B., I would do anything in the 
world to cheer you. Although I have no particular 
need of recreation, feeling pretty well, yet it would not 
hurt me ; and how pleasant for us to spend a week to- 
gether. Now hear what I say : You come down to the 
junction (in Perry County) next Monday, or to Millers- 
town, on the Juniata, with your carriage, and I will 
meet you there. And we will go to any place you 
please for a week — to Perry County, to Chambersburg, 
Mercersburg, and my brother's at Waynesboro — any 
place you please. And on Saturday we will separate 
at the same place and go home to preach. How would 
a trip to brother C. H. L,einbach's, in Perry County, 
do, for a week ? Fine ; we could go whortleberrying, 
and talk about all things. There is so much pomposity 
and empty flourish in this world, and in these times, 
that it does one good to come heart to heart. Perhaps 
a week away from your cares would do you good. And 
if in the way proposed, I can add something to your 
comfort, oh, how gladly will I do it." 



174 



LIFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



" What a memorable week that was," writes Dr. 
Bailsman. " Strolling along the banks of a stream, 
Dr. Harbaugh mounted a log, made a low awkward 
bow, and delivered a parody on a political speech.. 
I can still see him, his face flushed with fiery ardor 
of the occasion, himself looking so smilingless and 
grave, and the rest of us convulsed with laughter, 
till one's sides ached. " 

On another occasion, writing to Dr. Bausman 
who was then in Europe, Dr. Harbaugh said, among 
other things : 

' ' When I read your letter I had an indescribable 
strong desire to be with you, and had I then been able 
to command the speed of the telegraph, you would 

have met me soon. But let it go now. If 

I do not get to Europe, we will get to heaven some 
day — won't we? And as Stilling says: ' Dort lasst 
sich noch mehr von diesen Sachen sagen ' (There we 
shall have some more to say about these matters). 

' ' I was out at the fish baskets last week (in the 
Conestoga, near the old Bausman homestead). We 
had a pleasant time — two eels and forty suckers. We 
were wishing you were along with us. Got some of 
H's apples and cider on our return. I had your old 
coat on and filled it out pretty well. ,, 

Only those who knew the tall and slender young 
Bausman and the broad shouldered Dr. Harbaugh 
in 1857 would be able to appreciate the humor of 
that last sentence. 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



175 



During the winter of 1858-1859, he preached a 
series of sermons on the subject of the Virgin Mary 
which attracted large audiences to his evening ser- 
vices, some among his hearers being Roman Cath- 
olics. Report went out through the community 
that he was developing decided Romanizing ten- 
dencies. In January, 1859, he preached the fifth 
and last sermon of this series and at the request of 
not a few of his friends, prepared the manuscript 
for publication, which appeared in book form under 
the caption of u The True Glory of Woman," and 
had a large circulation. 

The preparation of these books, particularly the 
"Lives of the Fathers, " which he declared time 
and again had been too long neglected, was a great 
labor in itself. In 1850, beginning February 1, he 
preached 107 sermons in Lancaster and 28 at other 
places ; to this must be added ten or twelve lectures 
on special occasions. In 1851, 125 sermons in 
Lancaster and 30 elsewhere. In 1852, 97 sermons 
in Lancaster and 35 at other points. And so the 
average kept up during his pastorate of ten years, 
and indeed during his whole after life. 

In a meditation upon this portion of his work, at 
the close of the year 1851, he made the following 
entry in his diary : 

4 ' 'As the rain cometh down, and the snow from 
heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the 



I 7 6 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may 
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : so shall 
My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth : it 
shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish 
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing 
whereto I sent it.' (Isaiah 55, — 10, 11). 

' ' I believe in God and in all His promises — in His 
power and grace, and with cheerful confidence, look 
back upon all these sermons as blest of Him. In this 
lies the consolation of a pastor. What has been defi- 
cient in the presentation of the truth will be pardoned 
through the same blood by which we believe we have 
been pardoned of other sins, and received into favor. 
Glory to God in the Highest — all praise to the Lamb — 
all honor to the Spirit. Amen !" 

The following paragraphs from Dr. Harbaugh's 
address delivered at the close of the Allentown 
Seminary, April 3, 1861, are given as specimens of 
his style and diction in that kind of public dis- 
courses : 

" The story of the fall is a prophecy for the world. 
This first chapter in man's history is repeated in every 
subsequent one. As sin has made man a slave to the 
useful, he has learned to love his master. While the 
penalty of sin has made him toil for the useful, the 
power of sin has at the same time wrought to make him 
sensual, selfish, earthly ; so that if in any case he 
reaches wealth beyond his wants, he adds miserliness 
to his misery. Instead of pursuing the useful as means, 
he pursues it as end. Making an end of what is only 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



177 



designed as a means, he becomes mean in the pursuit 
of means, and sees nothing beautiful beyond what 
ministers to his degraded lust of means and money. 

' ' What then is his idea of education and cultiva- 
tion? The useful. The mind is a means to get 
money ; money is not a means to be used in the cul- 
tivation of mind. Whatever brings money is useful ; 
whatever costs money is evil. A little writing, a little 
reading, a little cyphering is necessary and cheap. 
But the higher branches — painting, music, all the 
finer arts, all the beautiful sciences, which a man can 
neither eat, nor drink, nor sell — what are they good 
for ? It is all money thrown away ! 

1 ' Such men would rather have a big strong horse 
than an educated child — would rather have stock in 
bank than stock in the heads of their children — would 
rather see their children hoe another potato patch than 
study another book. They say mules are more useful 
than music ; pigs are better than pictures. They say, 
give us little books and big bakeovens — little learning 
and large ledgers — big barns and little seminaries. To 
such results are we necessarily and consistently brought 
by carrying out the principle that the useful is the first 
and most important interest in life — a principle false in 
its position and debasing in its tendency." 

Within the first year of his pastorate at Lancaster 
the subject of a new church building was being 
agitated. The actual work began shortly after the 
close of the winter months. The old church was 
one of the few specimens left among the Pennsyl- 



I7 8 LIFE 0F HENRY HARBAUGH. 

vania Germans. It had been well built of selected 
materials, and though the young pastor thought it 
a sad sight to witness such an old temple of God 
laid in ruins, yet it was right to do so, as the new 
one was needed. To prepare a sermon for such a 
peculiar occasion as the farewell services in a 99 
year old house of worship was no light task. The 
venerable landmark soon disappeared under the 
strokes of the workmen and the ground was made 
ready for the new building. It was of far greater 
proportions than the one built at Lewisburg, and 
much more handsome in its architecture and ap- 
pointments. The corner stone was laid May 30, 
1 85 1, and the work went regularly forward from 
that time to its completion except as to the towers, 
which remained unfinished some time after the 
building was in use. 

In February, 1854, the consecration services were 
held, and it was a joyous occasion, largely attended 
by ministers and laymen of the Reformed Church 
and by citizens generally of Lancaster city. July 
25 of the same year witnessed the laying of the 
corner stone of the new college building. Henry 
Harbaugh had been deeply interested in the welfare 
of the institution, was a member of the committee, 
and assisted personally in selecting the site. He 
made an address on the occasion referred to above.* 

*Xotb- Franklin College, established at Lancaster, Pa., in 1787, and 
Marshall College, founded by the Reformed Church at Mercersburg, Pa., 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



179 



The last few years of his ministry at Lancaster 
weighed heavily on the heart of the young pastor 
on account of the antagonism which arose within 
the congregation. His uncompromising position on 
the subject of temperance was a disturbing factor. 
His strong advocacy of the liturgy then under con- 
sideration by a committee of synod, of which he 
was a member, aroused bitter opposition and greatly 
impaired his work in the charge. His consistory 
was sadly divided against itself, and gradually a 
majority was arrayed against him. He resigned in 

1857, but was induced to reconsider and withdraw 
his resignation. He remained until the autumn of 
i860, during which time the appeal taken to classis 
on his behalf was sustained. It is to be regretted 
that such facts need to be recorded, and they have 

in 1836, were consolidated under a new charter in 1852, the union taking 
effect in 1853. In view of the proposed celebration of the 50th anniversary, 
the jubilee of the founding of Franklin and Marshall College, in 1903, the 
following memoranda made by Dr. Harbaugh may not be without interest: 
" Franklin College— It was first held on Water Street, the second house 
above or north of Orange on the west side, in a stone building which was 
afterwards turned into a brewery. Prof. Reichenbach was then teacher. 
He was celebrated as a mathematician. From thence it was removed to a 
building on the back lot from south Queen Street near Vine, on the alley, 
which building has been lately and for some time the lockup of the city — 
a stone building. To this place it was removed in 1790 and remained till 
1793. This building was erected during the Revolutionary war as a Con- 
tinental stable for horses, by Col. Mathias Slouch, who was a German, 
commissary of supplies, receiving his title from that fact, never having 
been in military service. Thence it was removed to North Queen Street. 
That place, when it was removed thence, was turned into a hall for the 
exhibition of mountebanks ! Gov. Bigler and others began their rafting 
business by squatting on the lands of Franklin College in Clearfield 
County. These facts I obtain from Col. Mayer, now 79 years old, Sept. 21, 

1858. H. Harbaugh." 



!8o WFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

been touched upon only in so far as it seems neces- 
sary to keep the thread of narrative unbroken. He 
left Lancaster because he was unable to make his 
labors there acceptable to all of his people, but he 
gave up the charge only after he believed himself 
fully vindicated. Whatever may be said on behalf 
of those who so bitterly opposed him, it can be con* 
fidently asserted on his behalf that he grieved and 
wept over the church at Lancaster long and bitterly, 
and prayed for his enemies more earnestly than they 
can ever know. 

For further comment on this subject the reader 
may safely turn to the words of Dr. D. Y. Heisler, 
who passed through what he terms something of 
the same " painful and yet most blessed experi- 



" The old congregation, after a painful conflict of 
years, effected a division — one part, the English por- 
tion, constituting St. Paul's Church, while the other 
part, who desired services in both languages, was or- 
ganized into the First Church, to which Dr. Harbaugh. 
was called to minister, from Lewisburg, Pa., in 1850. 
The fact of a long conflict having been passed through 
by the congregation — a conflict of languages — intensi- 
fied and rendered more fierce by previous conflicts, 
arising from the difference of religious sentiments pre- 
vailing among the members — the so-called old and new 
measure parties — rendered the position of the pastors 
of both churches very critical, and required in them 



IN THE MINISTRY. !8i 

the utmost prudence and care in order to keep clear of 
difficulties. 

' ' It is hard for an outsider to estimate duly the seri- 
ous difficulties and dangers which surrounded the wor- 
thy pastor in the First Church. He took charge of 
the congregation just as it was emerging out of the 
smoke and dust of this severe and protracted conflict, 
or series of conflicts rather, and while yet in a state of 
highest excitement. Many persons who had been for 
years careless and indifferent, and had taken little or 
no interest whatever in the church, were roused up by the 
excitement of the occasion and marshaled into battle 
array with the rest of the congregation, and at the 
time of the actual division, were in a certain way con- 
nected with the congregation as members. 

"This entire mass, so diverse and uncongenial in 
its character, had to be managed, and either gradu- 
ally worked into a homogeneous mass or finally elimi- 
nated as useless, and even worse than useless, material, 
or else retained as a source of constant trouble. The 
earnest and positive labors of Dr. Harbaugh, to some 
extent carried forward simultaneously this three-fold 
process of spiritual assimilation, elimination, and exci- 
tation of ever-recurring troubles in the congregation. 

' ' That there should be conflicts was to be expected 
as a matter of course ; neither man nor angel could 
have prevented them ; that the earnest and faithful 
pastor should be able at all to bear up under these 
manifold trials is an evidence of the wonderful powers 
of endurance which he possessed ; and that he should 
succeed in spite of all these necessary and unavoidable 



l% 2 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

trials, to build up the congregation, both in numbers 
and in strength and clearness of their Scriptural views 
and Christian virtues, proves his extraordinary ability 
as a preacher and pastor ; and finally the fact that, 
during his pastorate, stormy and perplexing, one of the 
finest and most substantial churches in the city of Lan- 
caster should be erected, is sufficient to stamp his min- 
istry in that congregation as efficient and successful in 
the extreme. We do not speak here at random ; for 
having been connected as pastor, with one portion of 
that congregation during its fiery trials, we know from 
painful and yet most blessed experience what the state 
of the congregation then was, and what extraordinary 
trials it involved for its future shepherd.' ' 

As a young man both in Lewisburg and Lancas- 
ter his uncompromising attitude upon moral ques- 
tions often served to array against him a portion of 
the community which could combine to place him 
in a false light. While in after life he never altered 
his views on any question of principle, he modified 
his methods of combating evil and receded from the 
extremes to which he had gone upon some occa- 
sions. 

He pursued the right as he saw it without any 
fear of the consequences. His zeal in the interest 
of those who showed any disposition to accept 
Christ never abated in the least. The indifference 
of parent to the religious training of children he 
deplored as one of the withering effects of the power 



IN THE MINISTRY. ^3 

of worldliness, and he would postpone a baptism 
and give the parents a serious talking to when he 
found them ignorant of and indifferent to the step 
they were about to take. 

Just as he was severe at times with those who 
were wilfully wicked and immoral, so he was gentle 
as a mother in dealing with those who were strug- 
gling upward from the effects of a long and rebel- 
lious life into a purer condition of living where 
they could make an intelligent surrender of them- 
selves to God. 

With the social life of young men in his congre- 
gations he was in perfect sympathy. On semi- 
public occasion he was frequently the centre of an 
interested group, both young and old, and it is re- 
membered of him by many who had the personal 
experience, that his good humor never forsook him, 
and his fund of anecdote never failed. He was ready 
for a romp with the children and had plenty of little 
tricks and stories with which to amuse them. 

Whenever he had occasion to withdraw from 
such relation in life to the pulpit or services of the 
church, he invariably laid aside all spirit of levity, 
and became clothed with a solemnity and serious- 
ness of manner which he really felt deeply, and 
which he imparted to all who were in his presence. 
While not a man of unusual height, he was of 
strong muscular build, and his commanding pres- 



1 84 IvlFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

ence strengthened the impression that he was of 
large stature. 

He made frequent mention in his diary of the 
pastoral work. He allotted a part of each fore- 
noon for visiting families to urge upon them their 
religious duties, and he diligently sought out per- 
sons who ought to attend catechetical lectures and 
who were for the most part indifferent to their priv- 
ileges. " How faithless are some parents in regard 
to their baptized children !" he exclaims upon one 
occasion. 

With all the demands upon his time he did not 
forget the duties he owed to his family. Referring 
to a part of New Year's day which he spent with 
them, he said : " I spent the most part of my time 
to-day with my family. This is a duty which there 
is danger of neglecting. We are in danger of be- 
coming unsocial in the multitude of studies and 
cares. Must seek to guard against this tendency. " 
He had this thought in mind also when he dedi- 
cated his book " Birds of the Bible" to his wife, 
" to whom the hours of leisure in which this volume 
was prepared properly belonged." 

These reflections occurred to him amid the press- 
ing duties of his pastorate such as are mentioned in 
his diary entry of March 14, 1852: " Married a 
couple. Preached and held the communion in 
German. Gave the communion in three places to 
sick persons. Attended a funeral. Examined, 



IN THE MINISTRY. ^5 

baptized and confirmed one person. Preached and 
held communion in English in the evening." 

For ten years and a half he had labored among 
the people of Lancaster until the first of October, 
i860, when he resigned his charge. On Sunday 
evening, September 9th, after the sermon, three 
men from St. John's Church in Lebanon, stepped 
forward as a committee and presented a call in the 
name of that congregation. The result of the 
pastor's consideration of the call is found in the 
fact that a few weeks later he removed to Lebanon, 
Pa., and assumed the pastorate of the newly organ- 
ized congregation of St. John's Church. 

Synod was in session at the time of his arrival 
in Lebanon, and he was installed by a committee 
of synod, October 18, i860, as pastor of St. John's 
Reformed Church, Lebanon. The progress of his 
labors among this new people may be gathered from 
his first anniversary sermon : 

11 One year ago we were brought together in the 
providence of God, almost strangers to one another, and 
the solemn relation of pastor and people was made and 
ratified between us. If any one had suggested such an 
event but a few weeks before it took place, we would 
have set him down as a dreaming prophet. Surely it is 
not in man to direct his steps and still less is it in a 
minister to choose his charges ! It is due to the con- 
gregation by whose kindness and consideration this 
first year of my ministry has been made pleasant, to say 



^6 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

that I have had no reason for a moment to regret the 
change which brought me into this interesting and hope- 
ful field of labor. Whatever has been defective in my 
ministry has been charitably endured by you ; and I 
have this confidence of faith, that the blood which 
washes away all sin will also atone for the faults and 
follies which attach to the ministry committed to me. 

1 ' One year ago this beautiful church edifice was the 
centre of a singular cluster of anomalies. Here was a 
church building without a church — a consistory with- 
out a congregation — a pastor to be installed without 
any members to be installed over — pews without occu- 
pants — a choir gallery without choir or instruments — a 
Sunday-school room without teachers or children — book 
cases without books. In short the entire shell of a 
home without a family. 

"It was evident, however, that there were earnest 
and anxious hearts looking towards this spot, to whom 
it was daily growing more sacred, and who had made 
up their minds that what was not yet, by the grace of 
God should shortly be. When the pastor asked for 
members to be installed over, names were handed in. 
When the bell rang, people came. When the empty 
pews asked for occupants, families gathered in. When 
the hymns were announced, choral sounds greeted the 
ear and cheered the heart. When the doors of the 
Sunday-school were thrown open, there was heard the 
pleasant noise of little feet ; and when the doleful 
empty shelves of the library cases were looked into, it 
was vsaid ' let there be books/ and books came. 

" Without commotion and without restraint, by some 



IN THE MINISTRY. jgy 

mysterious law of attraction, everything took its place 
and began to move in its order, ' while in stillness thus 
our little Zion rose.' 

' ' What has been accomplished during this first year 
of our existence can of course onfy be fully known in 
that great time of harvest unto which all our earthly 
labors continually grow. Yet in some degree we may 
judge of permanent results from indications of present 
progress and success. The first and most outward data 
are furnished by our statistics. These we shall first 
present. 

''This congregation was organized one year ago 
(October, i860) with 6 1 adult members. To these have 
been added by confirmation 7, by certificate 33, making 
the whole number added 40 

"There is, however, something higher and better 
than statistics ; the spirit and life of the congregation 
which has made these statistics what they are. Fully 
104 sermons and 52 shorter week-day lectures have 
been delivered ; for if there have been some omissions 
of regular services, these have been more than made up 
by the extra services on holy days and in connection 
with the communion occasions. 

' ' Our faith in the divine character of the teaching 
office in the church does not allow us to fear that the 
word might have returned void. 

' ' Rather we must believe that the entrance of the 
w 7 ord has given light ; and that many have been built 
up and confirmed in their faith. 

1 ' No credit is due to us if these discourses have not 
been harping on favorite strings, but have carried us 



!88 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

over the general ground of faith and practice ; because 
our course has been marked out for us by the excellent 
arrangement of the church-year, so that it was not law- 
ful for us to pleasure at will on easy or popular topics, 
but we were under a wholesome discipline which re- 
quired us, as each Sunday directed, to give a portion 
of all the meat in due season. Thus it has been almost 
impossible for us to overlook or omit any doctrine, any 
duty, any privilege, any virtue, any grace, for each 
one confronted us at some time or other in the Lessons 
of the day. If this course has in any measure brought 
before us the whole truth, round and symmetrical, we 
are indebted to the order of the church year for it. 
For this is as good a preventive of idleness in ministers, 
as it is a terror to lop-sided and one idea Christians." 

The anniversarv sermon, from which the forego- 
ing extracts are taken, further takes up the review 
of Sunday-school work of the year, and then drifts 
into an historical view of the church year, and the 
use of the liturgy in the Reformed Church. Dr. 
Harbaugh experienced no difficulty in the introduc- 
tion of the liturgy and observance of the church 
year at Lebanon. He congratulated the congrega- 
tion upon the restoration to them of their part in 
the services of the sanctuary. 

( ■ You have claimed your right of being active wor- 
shipers, and not silent spectators merely. . . . You 
claim, with the meditations of your heart, also to offer 
up the words of your lips. When God said by the 



IN THE MINISTRY. jgg 

mouth of Solomon, * Let all the people say, amen !' he 
gave to the people that response of faith, and that seal 
of prayer. Who shall take it from them ? For this, 
too, I claim no credit. You by your own wish and de- 
cision, asked it. Before I was installed as your pastor 
you asked it ; I only acquiesced in your decision, but I 
did it from long aud full conviction and with all my 
heart. And the more heartily and devoutly you re- 
spond to our beautiful and solemn prayers, the more I 
shall commend you for it." 

As the children are an important part of the 
church, the Sunday-school is an important part of 
the congregation. At the opening of the year there 
were mustered 87 officers, teachers and scholars ; 
they had not a single book, not a Bible nor a New 
Testament. At the end of the year they numbered 
in all 117 members, had all the Bibles and Testa- 
ments they needed, catechisms for each scholar, 
and a monthly paper to give to each one in the 
school room. They had 431 instructive and inter- 
esting books, u have become publishers of a Hymn 
Book of our own, and our treasury is still in funds." 

The two years that followed, and that terminated 
his labors as a pastor of any particular flock, were 
busy ones for the minister of St. John's. Civil 
strife between North and South was raging furi- 
ously and the excitement of the times was bearing 
heavily against the progress of his work. Dr. Har- 
baugh had voted for Fremont ; he voted for Andrew 



190 



LIFE OF HBNRY HARBAUGH. 



Curtin for Governor, and for Lincoln, and he was 
unwavering in his allegiance to the government 
from the beginning to the end of the war. He 
seriously considered accepting a chaplaincy in a 
Pennsylvania regiment, but was warmly and effec- 
tively persuaded by many of his friends that his 
best services to church and state could be rendered 
at home. That his proper place was at home is 
attested in more than one instance — and especially 
does it appear in the fact that the United States 
Christian Commission applied for and published 
his tract or address on the u Religious Character of 
Washington. " In sending this address out among 
the soldiers, the commission used these words : 

' ' Soldiers, read and study the religious character of 
Washington as presented in the following pages, and 
while you read and study, and endeavor to learn how 
to serve your country to the best of your abilities, re- 
member the motto, ' In God we Trust.' " 

The pastor of St John's went to Harrisburg Feb- 
ruary 22, 1861, and heard Mr. Lincoln speak on 
the occasion of his stop there during the memorable 
trip from Springfield to Washington. He records 
that he was well pleased with the honest face and 
judicious words of the president-elect. 

He was much depressed when in December, 1862, 
Dr. Schaff, who had become his intimate friend, 
went to Andover to deliver a course of lectures — he 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



191 



had a presentiment if not a conviction that Dr. 
Schaff was lost to the Reformed Church. But a few 
months later he had a very cheering letter from his 
friend in which he spoke of being well pleased with 
Andover, but adds : " Nevertheless, I see no occa- 
sion for changing my views on Puritanism in the 
least. On the contrary, it is one of the strongest 
arguments for our theological position that the de- 
fects of the system are beginning to be felt by its 
best and most earnest minds. There is plenty of 
light in New England but not enough heat. There 
is great need for the infusion of the historic, the 
mystic, the aesthetic and the churchly element. I 
spent a most pleasant evening with Dr. and Mrs. 
Stowe and was surprised to find how far they admit 
this very thing. Their judgment, or feeling rather, 
is worth the more as they have gone to the very 
extreme of independency. n 

Dr. SchafF further makes a very pleasant personal 
suggestion which, if it had been adopted at the 
time, might have been the means of preserving Dr. 
Harbaugh's life for further years of usefulness. He 
says : "I thought of you with painful sympathy 
every day since I heard of your unexpected afflic- 
tion, and the thought struck me whether this per- 
haps would not be a fit opportunity for you to pay 
a flying visit to the mountains of Switzerland, and 
the universities of Germany. You may still be 
back by Christmas, if necessary. You could see 



192 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



Lange in Bonn, Hundeshagen in Heidelberg, 
Kersohner in Tubingen and a host of interesting 
men in Wiirtemberg and Prussia. I will give you 
the best of references. Think of this suggestion 
and let me know when you get here. n 

Many of his students and old friends love to re- 
member Dr. SchafF as one who in the depths of his 
heart never really did leave the Reformed Church. 
He was present at the General Synod held in Read- 
ing, Pa., in May, 1893, on ty a ^ ew months before 
his death, and it proved to be his farewell meeting 
with his Reformed brethren. At that time, refer- 
ring to the Briggs heresy trial then pending, he 
said, u If they turn us out I will come right back 
to you." And in conversation with one of his 
friends about early times, he remarked : " Die alte 
Iyiebe ist doch die beste." 

The characters of Nevin, Schaff, and other men 
of the Mercersburg movement are not easily sus- 
ceptible of comparison. In personality they dif- 
fered widely. In their habits of work and thought 
they were far apart. Nevin was a teacher of teach- 
ers ; Harbaugh was peculiarly a teacher of the 
people. Schaff and Nevin were to the church what 
an upright man should be in the national senate. 
Harbaugh was a commoner. Just as the ideal sen- 
ator concerns himself with the great questions of 
state and thereby reflects back to the people a more 
perfect form of government, so Nevin championed 



IN THE MINISTRY. 



193 



the cause of Christ on the floor of synod. Har- 
baugh came forth directly from the hearts of the 
people and brought their needs and interest up with 
him. The influence of great theologians tends 
from the seat of deliberative bodies back to those 
who created them ; the influence of Harbaugh's 
life and teachings, on the contrary, originated in 
the homes and hearts of his people, and forged its 
way to centres that were even beyond the confines 
of his own branch of the church. But the attri- 
butes that were predominant in either of these 
fathers of the church, were in a large measure 
common to all, and in their personal lives they were 
devoted and affectionate friends. 



VI. THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 

fT would be fortunate perhaps if the limit of 
this biographical sketch could be so extended 
as to admit of more liberal quotation and intelli- 
gent review of Dr. Harbaugh's literary productions. 
This is especially true of that portion of his work 
which is now hidden in the volumes of the Guar- 
dian, which he edited from its birth in 1850 until 
1 866, and the Mercersburg Review, to which he 
contributed frequently and of which he was the 
editor a part of the time. 

Such an undertaking, however, was not contem- 
plated in the original plan of this volume, and as 
the work has progressed its development does not 
seem to be of such a character as to make any ex- 
tended inquiry into the learned writings of Dr. 
Harbaugh a fitting part. While an effort has been 
made to present a view of his life partly through 
his literary work, yet this part of the field has been 
explored in much the same way as a cautious en- 
gineman with hand upon the throttle, and pilot by 
his side, approaches the curves and grades of an 
unfamiliar branch of the road. The learned fathers 
of the church who are still with us may be amused 
at the boyish pride that has here and there cropped 
out, and may readily excuse the impulsive expres- 



THB AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



195 



sions of a son upon the life of his sainted father : 
but they would be grieved, and justly so, at the 
result of an untutored and spiritless digression into 
the sacred domain of Christological Theology. 

If the tenderest theme of Dr. Harbaugh's whole 
life were capable of expression in one word, it 
would be Home, In fond recollection, it was the 
home of his childhood, that found expression in 
"Heemweh," and other poems both in English 
and German, as well as in almost every number of 
the Guardian, during the early years of his min- 
istry. In present enjoyment and affection, it was 
the family home — the sympathy and companion- 
ship of the wife of his mature years whom he 
called u the home of his heart. " 

In his deepest contemplation and spiritual long- 
ings, it was the heavenly home of which he said at 
the conclusion of his first published volume/ 4 The 
Sainted Dead:" 

" Here I lay down my pen, but here do I not end my 
meditations on the heavenly land. My thoughts, and 
feelings, and hopes crowd onward still. Along the misty 
Jordan, which bounds the future side of this mortal 
life, I continue to walk up and down, crowding upon its 
awful confines, and looking anxiously across, till the 
fog breaks.' ' 

Then from the German of Stilling he quotes : 



igS UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

" Blessed are they that are homesick, for they shall 
come to their father's house.' ' 

The scenes on which his mind had dwelt — the 
scenery upon which his eyes had rested in child- 
hood's years when mind and affections were peculi- 
arly plastic and growing, had transferred their 
images into the eye and spirit, leaving there a bent 
and bias which remained a part of his inmost self. 
Thus the deep memory of childhood brought its 
scenes to his spirit with all their old immediate- 
ness, and the riper life became their interpreter ; in 
these resurrections of memory lay the power of 
his mature life to impress others ; here lay the 
secret of his wisdom to teach, and his mystic power 
to charm. 

To point out just when Dr. Harbaugh's literary 
life began would be impossible. His habit of jot- 
ting down his thoughts started almost with the first 
efforts of the school-boy to write English words ; 
his productions while at school in Ohio have been 
briefly referred to elsewhere in these pages. Upon 
entering the ministry at Lewisburg he began to con- 
tribute articles to the Reformed Church Messenger. 
He prepared the carriers' addresses for the local 
papers at Lewisburg, Lancaster, and Lebanon almost 
every year of his pastorate in each place. 

The first published volume, K ' The Sainted Dead, " 
grew out of a series of sermons which he delivered 



XKf, 

L/ferur £*T>e^*T CS&+ *&u^T tcT* JcocA. P*l<^ <^£ 




TWO STANZAS OP DAS ALT SCHUL HAUS ' ' IN FAC-SIMILE. 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



197 



at Lewisburg as early as 1845, an( ^ after several 
years meditation on the subject, he published the 
work in 1848. In gathering information on this 
interesting subject he was surprised to find that so 
little had been written directly on it. He found 
also that, while his own mind had been employed 
on the subject, there were many to whom it had 
been a subject of like interest, and who were eager 
to read what professed to throw light on it. 

When he had finished the work it was laid unre- 
servedly before his friend and teacher, Dr. John W. 
Nevin, with the request that he exercise critical 
censorship on the work without mercy. In the 
July number of the Mercersburg Review (1849) 
Dr. Nevin reviewed the book and incidentally gave 
his impressions of the personality of the author, 
who was then thirty-one years old, and had been 
out of the seminary only five years : 

1 ' A very popularly written volume on a popular and 
interesting theme, which needs only to be known gen- 
erally, we think, to find many readers, and which, 
when it is seriously read, can hardly fail to leave behind 
it a salutary religious impression. The work of course 
is more practical than philosophical, designed to serve 
the purposes of believing piety rather than to minister 
food for curious speculation. At the same time the 
writer shows himself to be possessed of a good deal 
more learning, and philosophy too, than we meet with 
in many who put forth much larger pretensions in this 
13 



I9 8 WFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

form. Mr. Harbaugh is constitutionally a thinker, and 
not a mere dull retailer of other men's thoughts. 

"The habits of the preacher and the pastor, both 
vocations in which he is known to excel, are not allowed 
with him to mar the sympathies and affinities of the 
scholar ; and the present production, in this view, is 
certainly very creditable to his literary character and 
powers, and carries in it also good augury for the time 
to come. The author has a certain advantage for the 
popular discussion of the subject he has taken in hand, 
in his temperament and age. The first includes a 
broad dash of mysticism ; to the second he is indebted 
for an exuberance of imagination, which riper age will 
be apt considerably to tame, both qualifications well 
suited to help the mind forward, in such an excursion 
as is here made over the confines of time and sense, 
into the world of unseen mystery that lies beyond. 
There is nothing dark, however, nor particularly tran- 
scendental in the style of the work. Its poetry is not 
prose run mad, or mounted on stilts into the region of 
the clouds, but clear, sensible thought and speech 
which as a general thing all sorts of readers may readily 
enough comprehend. Mr. Harbaugh uses a pen which 
is at once both fluent and correct." 

After discussing the work on its theological side 
somewhat at length, Dr. Nevin closes with these 
words : 

" On the subject of the Church, as we have before 
said, as well as in its whole Christological theory, the 
little volume before us is far enough removed from the 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. ig g 

abstract spiritualism which has become so common in 
our modern divinity. One great object of the writer 
seems to be indeed to expel such spirituality of the 
mere intellect from our minds, and to make us feel that 
the mystery of the new life, as it is unfolded to us in 
Christ, is no less real and concrete and near to the 
world as it now stands, than are the palpable existences 
that surrounded us in the sphere of sense." 

Dr. Nevin was not mistaken in his prediction 
that the book would be widely read. The first edi- 
tion was soon exhausted and the second followed it, 
enriched at various points, and considerably enlarged 
by additional arguments, illustrations, and practical 
reflections, the fruit of continued attention to the 
subject. 

The second volume, " Heavenly Recognition" 
(1851), is an earnest and scriptural inquiry into the 
question, will we know our friends in Heaven ? In 
style and command of language there is a notice- 
able improvement over the first volume and the 
reader is led to feel that the arguments advanced 
are sound and correct, yet, for those who are soon 
convinced, there is still a pleasure in following the 
author through all his meditations on this absorb- 
ing subject. This volume, like the first, was well 
received and ran through many editions. 

" The Heavenly Home," which completed the 
trilogy on the future life, was published in 1853. 
As to its aim and purpose, it is well introduced in 



200 UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

the preface to the work itself. It concluded what 
the author had designed to contribute to this inter- 
esting department of pious inquiry — the fruits of 
seven years' contemplation of the subject. These 
themes were not treated without a special and defi- 
nite aim, even beyond the general desire of pro- 
moting the interests of individual piety and com- 
fort. While this had been kept steadily in view, 
it was in connection with what the author consid- 
ered the wider and deeper wants of the age. He 
saw in the piety of the age a drifting towards mere 
naturalism. The power of the world to come, he 
thought, did not enter sufficiently into our piety. 
Men were not conscious, as they should be, of their 
nearness to unseen, supernatural, and eternal reali- 
ties. Hence instead of reverence, there was bold- 
ness ; instead of humility, presumption ; instead 
of quietude of spirit, there was restlessness ; instead 
of faith, individual notions and opinions , instead of 
love and hope, there were distractions and fitful 
spasms of desire ; and instead of the life of a higher 
world, dwelling in us by grace, and bearing us for- 
ward to glory, we have become the unhappy sub- 
jects oi mere influences. 

i% May we not ask, n says the author, " whether 
the very progress of modern natural science, which is 
the cause < f all our earthly conveniences, and which 
if rightly used leads us towards God, has not by a 
prostitution to mere carnal ends, had a tendency to 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 2 OI 

cause men to deify human reason, to enthrone in- 
tellect, to over-rate man's natural powers, to flatter 
his pride, to seek the satisfaction of mere temporal 
wants, and thus practically to forget the momen- 
tous interests and claims of a future and higher 
world ? Behold for a moment the busy whirl of 
earth, the rush and rivalry of the multitudes in 
pursuit of the mere interests of time, even to the 
secularization of holy seasons and places, and then 
say whether the subduing powers of another life 
are felt as they should be." 

In the treatment of the whole subject of the 
future state, the author sought to avoid two ex- 
tremes. On the one hand, he endeavored to shun 
the vague, hortatory cantation, which he found so 
common in a certain class of practical treatises, and 
which, however pleasant it might be to a certain 
class of Christians, he did not consider either profit- 
able or satisfactory to earnest and inquiring minds. 

Again, with equal diligence, he sought to avoid 
wild and bold speculations, which, while they de- 
light the itching ear of the curious, have in them 
too much of the wisdom of this world to serve the 
purposes of true piety, and have, to reverent minds 
at least, the appearance of being profane. He 
humbly sought to entwine in one, the authority of 
revelation, the definiteness of science, and the ten- 
derness of devotion. 



202 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

How well he succeeded in this devout purpose, is 
attested by the thousands of readers who have 
sought consolation in contemplation of the future 
life, in their affliction and distress. 

( ' There reposes deep in the human spirit the idea of 
the perfect. Amid the sense of our own imperfections 
and the sight of imperfection in all that surrounds 
us, there is the deep, intuitive conviction that there 
exists somewhere the infinitely Pure, the infinitely 
Beautiful, and the infinitely Good. Often when 
the spirit lingers lonely and meditative among the 
wrecks of earthy hope, and feels as if it could no 
more cling to things which perish, it is drawn by a 
sweet attraction made up of faith, hope, and love, into 
a far off silent world of peace, purity, and perfection. 
Beneath our sense of guilt, beneath those monitions 
that chide us as wanderers, beneath the confusion and 
collision of sense, of sin and sorrow, are heard in soft 
* mournfully pleasant ' undertones the harmonies of 
higher, holier, and happier realms. There is at such 
times a growing weary of present things, the things 
that are seen ; and the spirit longs after an outlet from 
that which is ' in part,' and an outlet into that com- 
munion where ' that which is in part shall be done 
away.' " 

In the words just quoted the author of the 
u Heavenly Home," the last of his volumes on the 
future state, introduces his readers to a pious con- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



203 



templation of the future world, and the employ- 
ments and enjoyments of the saints in heaven. 

In some of the positions taken by the author in 
these volumes, Dr. Nevin did not fully concur. 
While he warmly commended the work, he also took 
advantage of the author's request that " he criticize 
the work without mercy, n and indicated what he 
considered errors from a theological point of view. 

Indeed, it is related that Dr. Harbaugh himself, 
as Professor of Didactic and Practical Theology at 
Mercersburg, made some statement in one of his 
lectures which was not at all consistent with his 
treatment of the same theme in " The Sainted 
Dead," and when his attention was called to it, he 
made reply that he had written that book when he 
was a boy. 

Quite different in character was the next publi- 
cation from his pen, though attended with the same 
diligence in research and earnestness of purpose. 

In the autumn of 1852, at Lancaster, he preached 
a sermon from the text (Prov. 30, 26), u The conies 
are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in 
the rocks." This suggested to him the idea of 
writing a series of articles for the Guardian on the 
animals and birds of the Bible. No doubt he 
found that the whole subject would take too wide a 
range for his purpose, and chose the birds of the 
Bible as the more pleasant branch of the subject. 
These articles appeared in the Guardian during 



204 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



the year 1853-4, and after being revised were pub- 
lished in 1854 in book form. 

Piously cultivated and truly refined minds, he 
thought, would never tire in the study of this beau- 
tiful portion of creation — the birds. Peculiarly in- 
teresting to him were those birds which Jesus men- 
tioned, whose images, natures, and habits mingled 
with the visions of holy men of old, and which be- 
came to them great words bearing precious truth to 
ages since, and ages yet to come. The author's 
endeavor was not to give descriptions of dead birds 
so much as to make pictures of the living ones ; 
and he aimed to make his book more like a grove 
than a cabinet Mechanically the book was hand- 
somely printed and richly illustrated in colors, and 
had a large circulation. Prof. W. M. Nevin, in his 
interesting review of it, points it out especially to 
those who wish to remember their friends at Christ- 
mas, and speaks of it as a book that u will not 
waste its sweetness in a single year, but continue to 
bloom for many ; one that will not soon be super- 
seded or impaired, but, like a good old painting, 
keep its place and be rather improved by age ; one 
that will rest comfortably beside even the Bible or 
any other good book and not feel out of place ; one 
that will delight not only youth and beauty and 
childhood with his laughing eyes, but be read with 
pleasure also by manhood, and lighten with a mellow 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



205 



smile even the cheek of hoary eld, as he pores over 
it earnestly through his sober glasses. " 

Then came " Union With the Church, " a small 
volume of 127 pages, a plain, practical treatise upon 
the duty and privilege of becoming members of the 
church. Presuming correctly that a number of 
well meaning persons remain out of the church, 
because the progress of sectism and rationalism has 
produced a false public sentiment in relation to the 
nature of the church, the author, in the first part, 
removes the difficulties which present themselves 
to sincere inquirers, and, in the second part, pre- 
sents a series of convincing arguments in favor of 
the immediate union with the mystical body of 
Christ. 

In the January number of the Mercersburg Re- 
view (1851), appeared an article entitled, tl System- 
atic Benevolence, or a Plea for the Lord's Portion 
of Our Increase." This was afterwards published 
in pamphlet form at the request of synod, under 
the title of U A Plea for the Lord's Portion of the 
Christian's Wealth." 

In September, 1855, Dr. Harbaugh came into 
possession of the Journal of Rev. Michael Schlatter 
and examined it with the greatest pleasure. He at 
once saw its importance as a part of our early 
church history and immediately began to translate 
it into English. 



206 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Much has been written, in recent years, of Amer- 
ican history covering the period in which the Rev, 
Michael Schlatter lived and labored for the Re- 
formed Church in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary- 
land, and Virginia. Much ink has been shed in the 
endeavor to produce living pictures of the life and 
times which led up to and through the American 
Revolution. In their efforts to improve upon the 
early historians and to brighten the dry facts of his- 
tory, not a few writers have gone to the other ex- 
treme, drifting into senseless absurdities. 

Prof. John Fiske, whose lectures on the critical 
period of American history, and other works in the 
same line of thought, have given him a well-earned 
reputation as an infuser of life and spirit into the 
scenes in which the American Army of Revolution 
and the Continental Congress had their struggles to 
found a new nation, would no doubt be surprised to 
find that this same life and spirit pervades " The 
Life of Michael Schlatter " a humble missionary, a 
chaplain in the French and Indian war, and the first 
superintendent of public schools in Pennsylvania.* 

*Dr. J. H. Dubbs gives the following interesting facts in the life of 
Schlatter : 

11 Schlatter was chaplain of the Royal American Regiment, 4th Battalion, 
1 757 _I 759- Chaplain of the 2nd Battalion of Bouquet's army on the expe- 
dition to Pittsburg, 1764. Took the side of the patriots in the Revolution ; 
two of his sons were in Washington's army. He was imprisoned on the 
grounds that he was still an officer of the Royal army, but refused to obey 
orders. His house was plundered. I can find no proof of Harbaugh's 
assertion that he was a chaplain in the Revolutionary army." 

See also "The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States," by J. 
G. Rosengarten, pp. 25-27. 



THB AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



207 



The life of Michael Schlatter was produced amid 
the busy years of the Lancaster pastorate. In the 
course of its preparation the author unfolded a gen- 
eral plan for what he then termed " Lives of the 
Fathers/' and he had already gathered much mate- 
rial for this object. He found to his great regret 
that the work had been too long neglected, and 
that many interesting facts were growing into dim 
tradition in reference to the early ministers of the 
Reformed Church. He gives forcible expression to 
this thought in the introduction to the " Life of 
Michael Schlatter :" 

1 ' For a time the sayings and doings of our ancestors 
may be left to the preservation of a grateful remem- 
brance, and to the unrecorded traditions which parents 
hand down to their children. But such traditions soon 
grow dim and uncertain, and at last vanish away. As 
the setting sun leaves first a glory, then a twilight, 
and at last darkness : so the deeds of the past as they 
sink beyond our personal recollection, are first bright, 
then dim, and then gone ! — and too late we mourn that 
we have no picture of the faded beauty. Our parents 
relate to us stories of the days of our grandparents ; 
but our grandparents themselves are gone, and tell us 
no more what was before them. This is our case as a 
church in America. The grandparents are gone, the 
fathers are going, the history of their toils and achieve- 
ments is beginning to swim in half uncertain twilight, 
and there is but barely time to record the doings of 
their life's day before the oblivious night sets in, when 



2 o8 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

records and traditions will no more recognize one 
another. ' ' 



Michael Schlatter was not the first ordained min- 
ister who came out with the oppressed emigrants 
from the Palatinate and found a home in Pennsyl- 
vania and neighboring states. He was, however, 
the one who accomplished most and made the 
greatest sacrifices in the work of permanently organ- 
izing the infant church in America. The work of 
Henry Harbaugh is a faithful and spirited record 
of the earnest and laborious life, nearly half a cen- 
tury of which was spent in the religious interests 
of the Germans of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Mary- 
land, and Virginia. It was a life belonging entirely 
to the last century, including what may be called 
the formative period both in church and state, 
and extending through the perils of our country's 
two tedious wars. The author's power of investi- 
gation into original sources, and his accuracy of 
detail, coupled with his ability to reproduce the 
elements of biography in a living story, have led 
more than one reader to pronounce the book a 
model of its kind. It was offered first and directly 
as the life and labors of Michael Schlatter, and then, 
indirectly, as a small contribution " to the inward 
civil and religious history of our free, peaceful, and 
noble state." For both these purposes, as well as 
for its intrinsic value, the book has been highly 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



209 



prized and widely read, especially among Pennsyl- 
vanians. Schlatter's appeal to the churches in 
Europe, setting forth the true condition of the des- 
titute congregations in the colonies, is well worth 
a careful reading by any one who desires to be well 
informed upon his own branch of the church. So 
also his connection with the charity schools ought 
to interest every Pennsylvanian who takes pride in 
the progress of education in the commonwealth. 

4 c The Fathers of the Reformed Church' ' followed 
the life of Schlatter. Two volumes were completed 
and a greater part of the material for the third pre- 
pared. The labor involved in this work was great. 
It made necessary an extensive correspondence, and 
no little traveling about for the purpose of consult- 
ing the old records. It has rescued to the church 
a vast amount of information concerning the early 
ministers and their work during the time when the 
church was almost wholly a missionary field. To 
use the words of the author himself: 

1 ' We have written vast numbers of letters — we have 
travelled in pursuit of facts — we have taken down the 
traditions of the aged, and compared them with pre- 
served records — we have searched old files of news- 
papers and pamphlets in the libraries of Philadelphia 
and elsewhere — we have examined piles of old letters 
in English, German, Dutch, and Latin — we have gone 
patiently through the Coetal and Synodical minutes 
and archives, so far as they are still extant, from 1748 



2io LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

down to the present time — we have carefully waded 
through a bundle of documents in German, Dutch, and 
Latin, procured some years ago from the ecclesiastical 
archives of Holland — we have examined, either per- 
sonally or through friends, all the old congregational 
records throughout the church — we have rummaged the 
old papers left behind by many of the earliest deceased 
ministers — we have been in garrets and in graveyards 
— we have begged and bought material — in short, we 
have sought wherever hope of success invited us, like 
one who seeks for goodly pearls." 

One letter of inquiry, under date of May 20, 
1856, to Dr. Bausman, who was then in Germany, 
runs as follows : 

"If you can incidentally, I wish you would make 
some inquiry about the religious condition of the Men- 
nonites in Europe. When you get to Berlin, please 
inquire also, if you do not forget it, about Eev. John 
C. Stahlschmidt, who came to this country about 1770 
and returned about 1790, and was about Berlin. He 
was a pietist. I once saw a letter he wrote to one of 
our old ministers, I think in 1793, or perhaps later. 
I would like to know his last years. I have a history 
of him up to the time he returned to Europe. I won- 
der whether the Dominies in the Rhine country know 
anything yet of the pastors who came from that 
country here — Hendel, Herman, etc." 

The Rev. D. Y. Heisler, D.D., continued this 
work after Dr. Harbaugh's death, and among his 
contributions was a brief but touching biography 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 2 II 

of Henry Harbaugh, his friend and co-worker. 
Dr. Heisler's work, with that of his successor, 
Rev. Dr. W. M. Detrick, brought the " Lives of 
the Fathers" down to the time when the material 
desired could be more readily and accurately 
obtained. 

Dr. Harbaugh finished the Lancastrian decade 
with the " Golden Censer,' ' a book of devotion for 
the young, his series of sermons preached on the 
life of the Virgin Mary, revised and published under 
the title "The True Glory of Woman, " and his 
volume of English poems. 

With his pastoral work, his Guardian, his labors 
attendant upon the deliberations of the Liturgical 
Committee, and the many other special calls upon 
his time all considered, it was certainly a busy ten 
years. 

Encouraged by Professor Nevin and others, and 
also by the fact that his publisher preferred the 
poems to another manuscript which had been sub- 
mitted as an alternative, he edited and prepared his 
English poems for publication. u The Mystic 
Weaver" and " Through Death to Life," are two 
of the poems which have been widely published 
and read both in Europe and America. They have 
been recited at times on public occasions by persons 
who did not know who the author was. The little 
"Child's Christmas Hymn" has been sung to the 
children of many firesides. Two hymns contained 



212 MFK OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

in the collection are also in the Church Hymn 
Book, but the compilers overlooked the authorship, 
and they were not accredited to Dr. Harbaugh until 
the last revised hymnal was published. They are: 

11 Jesus my Shepherd, let me share 
Thy guiding hand, Thy tender care ;" 

Also that more familiar one, " The Hiding Place n — 

" Jesus to Thy cross I hasten, 
In all weariness my home. ' ' 

His well-known hymn, u Jesus, I live to Thee," 
has taken its place in the Protestant Episcopal, 
Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian hymnals, and 
in a number of other collections. It has also re- 
cently been placed by Dr. Irvine in the College 
chapel at Mercersburg, upon a tablet in brass let- 
ters. The translation of it into German by the 
Rev. N. Z. Snyder has been highly spoken of, be- 
ginning : 

"Jesu, ich lebe Dir, 
Mein liebster Freund bist Du. ' ' 

The epilogue written for the anniversary of the 
Diagnothian Literary Society of Marshall College, 
July 2, 1847, * s t° be found in this collection of 
English poems. Dr. W. M. Nevin, in his inimita- 
ble way, has thus spoken ol them : 

u We were apprehensive," he commences, " that 
it would turn out in this way. A certain rich vein 
of feeling and easy flow of imagination had we 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



213 



long ago observed in the prose writings of our 
author, which we feared in the end would burst 
forth into poetry. A disposition in him for some 
time had we remarked, with some concern, to in- 
troduce into his essays and other writings, as if 
merely to illustrate or embellish some of his 
thoughts, choice passages taken from the best old 
English and German poets, which, however, showed 
too plainly what w T as the natural bent of his mind, 
and with what sort of writings he was pleased. 
Nay, in the Guardian, from its first appearance, 
little poetical pieces of his own had we been in the 
habit of observing every month, as it came out, 
few at first and far between, indeed, and, as we 
thought, inserted merely for filling up some odd 
space ; but, at length, we saw them swelling out 
into whole poems, extending sometimes over seve- 
ral pages. We were not taken aback then, by this 
final enunciation. We had seen the determined 
tendency long before. We knew that this would 
be the end of it." 

Dr. SchaflF confessed to a similar want of surprise. 
" The appearance of a volume of poems by Rev. H. 
Harbaugh," he says, " was to us simply a question 
of time. It had to come sooner or later by an un- 
avoidable necessity. The bird will sing and the 
poet will write poems, and if he finds a publisher 
he will publish also, or others will publish him. 
We have before us genuine lyric effusions, some of 
14 



214 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



them of more than ordinary beauty and merit, all 
animated by a lovely spirit, which associates beauty 
with truth and goodness and makes this triad the 
worshiping handmaid of religion." 

THROUGH DEATH TO LIFE. 



Have you heard the tale of the Aloe plant, 

Away in the sunny clime ? 
By humble growth of an hundred years 

It reaches its blooming time ; 
And then a wonderous bud at its crown 

Breaks out into thousand flowers : 
This floral queen, in its blooming seen, 

Is the pride of the tropical bowers. 
But the plant to the flower is a sacrifice, 
For it blooms but once, and in blooming dies. 

Have you further heard of this Aloe plant, 

That grows in the sunny clime, 
How every one of its thousand flowers, 

As they drop in the blooming time, 
Is an infant plant that fastens its roots 

In the place where it falls on the ground ; 
And fast as they drop from the dying stem, 

Grow lively and lovely around ? 
By dying it liveth a thousand-fold 
In the young that spring from the death of the old. 

Have you heard the tale of the Pelican, 

The Arabs' Gimel el Bahr? 
That lives in the African solitudes 

Where the birds that live lonely are ? 
Have you heard how it loves its tender young, 

And cares and toils for their good ? 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 

It brings them water from fountains afar, 

And fishes the seas for their food. 
In famine it feeds them — what love can devise ! — 
The blood of its bosom, and feeding them, dies ! 

Have you heard the tale they tell of the swan, 

The snow-white bird of the lake ? 
It noiselessly floats on the silvery wave, 

It silently sits in the brake ; 
For it saves its song until the end of life, 

And then in the soft, still even, 
'Mid the golden light of the setting sun, 

It sings as it soars into heaven ! 
And the blessed notes fall back from the skies — 
'Tis its only song, for in singing it dies. 

Have you heard these tales — Shall I tell you one, 

A greater and better than all ? 
Have you heard of Him whom the heavens adore, 

Before whom the hosts of them fall ? 
How He left the choirs and anthems above, 

For the earth in its wailings and woes, 
To suffer the shame and the pain of the Cross, 

And die for the life of His foes ? 
O Prince of the noble ! O Sufferer divine ! 
What sorrow and sacrifice equal to Thine ! 

Have you heard this tale — the best of them all — 

The tale of the Holy and True ? 
He dies, but His life, in untold souls, 

Lives on in the world anew. 
His seed prevails and is filling the earth 

As the stars fill the skies above ; 
He taught us to yield up the love of life, 

For the sake of the life of love. 
His death is our life, His loss is our gain, 
The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain. 



215 



2i6 UFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Now hear these tales, ye weary and worn, 

Who for others do give up your all ; 
Our Saviour hath told you the seed that would grow, 

Into earth's dark bosom must fall — 
Must pass from the view and die away, 

And then will the fruit appear : 
The grain that seems lost in the earth below, 

Will return many fold in the ear. 
By death comes life, by loss comes gain, 
The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain. 

The " Golden Censer' ! was prepared at Lancaster 
during the time that the Liturgical Committee were 
holding their deliberations, but was not published 
until Dr. Harbaugh had removed to Lebanon in 
November, i860. In it will be found not so much 
of anything new, as of that which will conduct the 
young Christian into the silent fellowship of the 
venerable saints of the past ages. The author 
claimed little for himself, but chose humbly to say : 
" Here are words of high inspiration born in the 
hearts and caught from the lips of martyrs, con- 
fessors and saints of all ages, lands, and languages. 
Sacred associations of faith, hope, love, and peni- 
tence, of joys and sorrows, of conflicts and victories, 
render fragrant every line and word of these solemn 
old devotions." 

During his first year at Lebanon, u Hymns and 
Chants," a book for the Sunday-schools, was issued. 
It proved to be what was needed and has been 
largely used as an order of worship and hymn book 
in our Sunday-schools for the last thirty years. In 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



217 



preparing this work the author was surprised to find 
how many poems the existing collections contained 
which in his judgment were not hymns at all. He 
also published, in 1867, u Youth in Earnest," as 
illustrated in the life of Theodore D. Fisher, a 
young member of his church at Lebanon, who be- 
came a paymaster's clerk in the army in 1863, and 
who was lost in the burning of the unfortunate 
steamer Ruth, on August 3, 1863, on the Missis- 
sippi river near Cairo. 

The mention of the " Child's Catechism" (1867), 
14 The Religious Character of Washington," " An- 
nals of the Harbaugh Family" (1856), and other 
small pamphlets, does not fully complete the list of 
his minor publications. 

The project of a commemoration of the three 
hundredth anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism 
now began to be of absorbing interest to the pastor 
of St. John's Church, Lebanon. This great event, 
after careful preparation, was celebrated at Phila- 
delphia, Pa., January 17-23, 1863. 

In a historical sketch of this event, or series of 
events, is the following paragraph : 

" Great events, it will be found, if facts are carefully 
traced out, generally owe their origin to some compar- 
atively trivial circumstance, which at the time attracted 
but little attention. The Tercentenary Celebration of 
the Formation and Adoption of the Heidelberg Cate- 



218 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

chism by the German Reformed Church in America, 
does not form an exception to this rule." 

In the first volume of the work entitled u The 
Fathers of the Reformed Church in Europe and 
America," by Rev. H. Harbaugh, D. D., the fol- 
lowing language occurs at the close of his sketch 
of Frederick III. : 

"If the Reformed Church wishes still further to 
honor the memory of Frederick, it cannot do it in a 
more appropriate and better way than by laboring to 
make his blessed Heidelberg Catechism rise to new life 
and power in the hearts of its members. Should the 
Reformed Church in America feel desirous of reviving 
old memories, in grateful connection with the Palati- 
nate prince and his zealous love for the church, and 
seek a fit occasion for such a pious purpose, we suggest 
the 300th anniversary of the year and day, when he, 
with his own imprimatur, and with pious princely com- 
mendation, sent forth the Heidelberg Catechism into 
the churches and schools of his dominions — January 
19, 1863. 

" How appropriate ! and what a blessing might such 
an occasion be made to the German Reformed Church 
in America !" 

This was written early in the year 1857, and 
published soon afterwards. It was not, however, 
until about two years later that any formal move- 
ment was set on foot to carry out the suggestion 
here made. At the annual meeting of the classis 



THK AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



219 



at Mercersburg, held in Huntingdon, Pa., in the 
month of May, 1859, a series of resolutions bearing 
on the subject was offered by the Rev. Dr. Philip 
SchafF, and adopted by the classis. 

This brought the matter to the attention of the 
synod of the church, and from that time forward, 
through means of committees, the work of prepa- 
ration was carried on and all arrangements were 
completed. 

Eminent theologians of Europe, especially in 
Germany, contributed articles which were translated 
and read by members of the convention. The 
opening sermon was preached by the Rev. Samuel 
R. Fisher, D.D., and Dr. John W. Nevin was made 
president. Dr. Harbaugh had translated the con- 
tribution of Dr. Herzog of Erlangen, Germany, on 
the Swiss Reformers and read it in place before the 
convention. 

Between the readings of the specially prepared 
essays, discussions were held in an informal way. 
At the close of the address of Dr. Ebrard on Me- 
lanchthon as translated by W. M. Reily, a tutor in 
the seminary at Mercersburg, Dr. Harbaugh, ad- 
dressing the convention said : 

"The essay of Dr. Ebrard just read discusses an 
important point — the influence exerted by Melancthon 
on the Palatinate, and the Melancthonian element as 
it entered into the formation and founding of the Re- 



220 M F 3 OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

formed Church of the Palatinate under Frederick III. 
in 1563. 

"The full extent and significance of this element, 
as it entered into that eventful period of the Reforma- 
tion history, has only during the last several decades 
come to be properly understood. The reason for this 
may be found in the more catholic spirit which has of 
late years characterized the study of that period of 
history. 

' ' When the great Reformatory movement of the 
sixteenth century became unfortunately divided into 
the two great sections of the Lutheran and Reformed, 
the controversial spirit on both sides grew sharp and 
strong. In the heat of battle, preferences — we might 
say prejudices — became firmly set, and these were 
traditionally perpetuated from age to age. Being 
removed from the scenes of those early contests both 
by space and by time, we of the present day are in this 
respect in a favorable position for reviewing and per- 
ceiving the ruling elements which entered into the 
events of the times. It is difficult for us now to 
appreciate fully the strong traditionary feelings which 
then warped, if they did not even unconsciously darken, 
the minds of those who then contended with each other 
on both confessional sides. Even some of the cate- 
chisms and books of elementary religious instruction, 
were, we may say, rudely sharp and pragmatic, cul- 
tivating thus the spirit of sharp antagonism in the 
minds of the young, and perpetuating stern traditional 
prejudices in youthful minds, who could know but 
little of the points at issue. In a passage in the cate- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 2 2l 

chetical work of De Witte — in many respects an 
excellent book — the catechumen is asked : 'Are the 
Papists properly called Catholic ?' Ans. 'No; they 
are properly called Kakolic,' — playing upon a Greek 
word meaning evil or wickedness. We have also heard 
of an elementary religious book of that time in which 
the child is asked : ' Believest thou firmly that the 
Reformed hold six hundred and sixty-six errors in 
common with the Turks?' Ans. ' Yes ; this I believe 
with my whole heart.' These are somewhat strong 
and extreme specimens ; but they are still illustrative 
of the sharp antagonism in which the different con- 
fessions stood toward each other, and show with what 
zeal it was sought to bias the minds of the age. In 
proportion as such traditional prejudice reigned, and as 
long as they reigned, it was, of course, impossible to 
take a calm and true view of the events in which they 
had their rise. 

* * With the dust of that great historical battle the 
partisan feeling of the age have in a great measure 
passed away, and men are prepared to look back and 
review the times with other eyes. The Reformed are 
now able to see the working of a great power in the 
bosom of Lutheranism, in which they discover not only 
a congeniality with what was precious to itself, but 
which actually became part of itself. Melancthon, the 
author of the Augsburg Confession, — who at first stood 
fully with Iyiither in his views of the lyord's Supper, — 
was brought gradually to sympathize with, and at last 
substantially to adopt, the view of Calvin on this sacra- 
ment, so that he incorporated it substantially in his 



222 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

amended edition of the Augsburg Confession of 1540, 
and, abandoning the view of Luther, or at least essen- 
tially modifying it, held and stated his views in a way 
which found hearty favor with the leading Reformed 
theologians. 

" Besides, — what is a still more important fact, — the 
view of Melancthon on the entire doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper took deep root, and extended itself widely and 
powerfully, in the bosom of the Lutheran Church itself. 
Such influence, in fact, did his views, as embodied in 
the tenth Article of the revised Augsburg Confession of 
1540, obtain, that it became the ruling power in the 
Lutheran Church on German soil. This is evident 
from the fact that from 1540 to 1580 the altered Augs- 
burg Confession entirely set aside the general use of the 
original confession of 1530, so that when, in 1580, it 
was intended to republish the original confession, no 
copy could be found to print from, and recourse had to 
be had to the original manuscript. 

" The fact is, that the latest and most reliable inves- 
tigations in history clearly show that Melancthon was 
influenced by the Calvino-Refortned doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper, and he influenced the Lutheran mind 
largely, especialty in the Palatinate, in favor of the 
same view : so that when the old Lutheran party rallied 
again, about the time when Frederick III. came into 
power in that electorate, they were notable to callback 
the general Lutheran mind from their tendencies toward 
and sympathy with the Reformed doctrine. Frederick 
III., with that deep insight which characterized him, 
wisely determined to embody these views in his Heidel- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



223 



berg Catechism. Melancthon' s influence had prepared 
the public mind for its favorable reception. The new 
catechism came with welcome into the bosom which 
already had all aptitudes and longings for the views it 
embodies. Thus the Melancthonian tendency in the 
Palatinate became the occasion, the basis, and the de- 
termining element from which rose the German Re- 
formed Church of the Heidelberg Catechism. In brief, 
the Reformed Church influenced Melancthon, and 
Melancthon opened the way for the founding of the 
Reformed Church on what was before Lutheran ground. 

' ' The historical facts on which this view of the rise 
of the Reformed Church of the Palatinate rests have 
been incontrovertibly established by such men as Dr. 
Ebrard, Dr. Heppe, Dr. Herzog, and others. Sudhof , 
in an article on the Heidelberg Catechism in Herzog' s 
Real-Encyclopsedie, and in his life of Ursinus and 
Olevianus, has vainly and ineffectually endeavored to 
controvert this view. 

" Facts justify us, moreover, in believing that had 
the timid Melancthon stood up firmly in maintaining 
the tendencies which his own influence had created, 
when these tendencies were again assailed by the old 
Lutheran party, the result might have been a full union 
of both sides of the Reformation on substantially the 
same confessional ground which the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism now represents. Who does not regret that so 
desirable a consummation was not realized? But 
Melancthon was constitutionally timid. We may not 
blame that illustrious man ; not more can be required 
of a man than is given him. He has been called a com- 



224 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



promiser. We would not charge him with this. We 
attribute his silence to his timidity. If, however, it 
should be thought true that the failure referred to has 
resulted from a compromising spirit, it is only another 
sad illustration of the fact, so often evident in history, 
that every endeavor to compromise the interest of fun- 
damental truth must meet with sad and certain defeat. 
1 ' No feature of Reformation history deserves more 
earnest study at the present time than this Melanc- 
thonian tendency ; and none gives better promise of 
pleasant and peaceful fruits to both the Reformed and 
Lutheran Confessions in their present states both in 
Europe and America. ' ' 

Dr. Harbaugh's principal address, however, on 
that occasion was " Creed and Cultus" — an ex- 
haustive treatise, with special reference to the rela- 
tion of the Heidelberg Catechism to the Palatinate 
Liturgy. The Tercentenary Monument — a volume 
of nearly six hundred pages, containing all the 
essays, proceedings, and a history of the movement, 
together with valuable statistics, was compiled and 
published in the same year of the convention. 
Much of the work of this publication was per- 
formed by Dr. Harbaugh before he gave up his 
charge at Lebanon to accept the professorship at 
Mercersburg. 

No one in the Reformed faith could have given 
the Mercersbicrg Review a more cordial welcome 
than Dr. Harbaugh. He pronounced its appear- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 225 

ance in January, 1849, as an e P°ch in the church. 
The ReTJtew was published at first every two 
months, then it became a quarterly and appeared 
as such until 1861, when the publication of it was 
suspended on account of the distracted state of the 
country. It was not revived until 1867, when it 
appeared again, under the editorship of Dr. Har- 
baugh. 

His stewardship was brief, but the Review gained 
a fair foothold again, and his contributions to it were 
characterized by great vigor and force. The Re- 
view has since been regularly published, having 
been modified several times in name and in general 
plan during the course of its history. It could not 
be otherwise than with pathetic and solemn interest 
that any one would now turn to these old volumes 
and behold the literary excellence and great scope 
of learning displayed therein. The first editor, 
Dr. Nevin, was the foremost theologian of his time 
in America. The general contributors were the 
men who have been in the front rank of thought 
and action during the last fifty years of our church's 
history. 

Dr. Harbaugh was a frequent contributor, and 
among his articles are the following : " Reverence 
in Worship," September, 1849; " Systematic Be- 
nevolence, or a Plea for the Lord's Portion of our 
Increase," in January, 1851, which was afterwards 
published in pamphlet form at the request of synod, 



226 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

as U A Plea for the Lord's Portion of the Christian's 
Wealth." In the July number, 1852, he contri- 
butes a review of the Doctrine of Christian Bap- 
tism, translated from Dr. H. Martensen, Professor 
of Theology in the University of Copenhagen. In 
January, 1853, appears his " Parochial or Christian 
Schools," being the substance of a sermon delivered 
by appointment at the meeting of the synod of the 
church in October, 1852, in the City of Baltimore, 
and published at the request of that body. In 
April of the same year is the continuation of Dr. 
Martensen' s discussion of baptism. 

During the year 1854 he contributed a translation 
from the German of Lange, and an article on Chris- 
tian cultus, and in the next year two articles from 
the German, and a further essay on Christian cultus. 
For the next five years he contributed no less than 
twelve articles of considerable length to the Review 
upon questions which were agitating the church at 
that time. 

Dr. Harbaugh, upon assuming the editorship of 
the Review in 1867, brought to the work a ripe 
scholarship and a high reputation as a writer and 
thinker upon the system of philosophical and theo- 
logical thought it was intended to represent. His 
theological studies conducted him into the very 
centre of the sphere in which it proposed to move. 
In his introductory article, January, 1867, he says: 
44 The publication which was from 1849 to ^5^ the 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



227 



Mercersburg Review ; from 1853 t° 1856 the Mer- 
cersburg Quarterly ; from 1857 to 1861 again the 
Mercersburg Review ; but which, under these 
changes of title, steadily maintained the same spirit 
and character, and which has been during the last 
five years suspended, is now again resumed. Its 
suspension was not owing to any loss of interest in 
the subjects to which its discussions had been de- 
voted, but partly, if not wholly, to the pressure on 
all publishing interests brought on by the war of 
the Union, and was always designed to be but tem- 
porary. The reasons which led to its origination 
are the reasons for its continuance. In resuming 
the old name it proposes to lift the old banner. n 

During his editorship in 1867, Dr. Harbaugh 
contributed to the Review, " The Christian Idea of 
Almsgiving," " The Two Systems, " " The Essence 
and the Form of Christianity, " and his last article, 
which appeared in the October number, " The Old 
Distinction between Gemeide and Kirche" with 
special reference to the 74th question of the Heidel- 
berg Catechism. 

The lectures which Dr. Harbaugh wrought out at 
the seminary in Mercersburg, are preserved in man- 
uscript among the archives of the seminary at Lan- 
caster. Some of the ministers who were students 
at the time these lectures were delivered, possess 
written copies of them in full, especially those on 
Dogmatics and Practical Theology. The only pub- 



228 IvlFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

lished lecture perhaps is the one which appeared in 
the Review of January, 1868, upon "The Church 
Doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sin. n 

Dr. Harbaugh completed a full course of lectures 
on Dogmatics which alone would make a good 
sized volume in print. He also prepared a course 
on Practical Theology, on Catechetics, Cultus and 
the Pastoral Work ; lectures on Homiletics, on 
Symbolics, on the history of Reformed Dogmatics, 
and on the Heidelberg Catechism. The mere 
mention of these topics can give no adequate con- 
ception of the work as it was planned and carried 
forward. 

u In a seminary where the teaching is all done 
by two professors and a tutor, " remarks the editor 
of the Review in April number, 1868, u the won- 
der is where time could be found for such an 
amount of labor, amounting really to the prepara- 
tion of full treatises in the several departments 
above enumerated." 

In outlining this work Dr. Harbaugh leaned 
towards the system of his favorite author, Dr. 
Lange, of the University of Bonn, but he was not 
merely a retailer of other men's thoughts, and his 
work is expanded and enriched by extensive 
research into the theology and philosophy of Ger- 
many. 

The Inaugural Address, " Christological Theol- 
ogy," was delivered in the First Reformed Church, 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



229 



Reading, Pa., on the 24th day of May, 1864. The 
General Convention of the Reformed Chnrch to 
close the Tercentenary Celebration of the Forma- 
tion and Adoption of the Heidelberg Catechism, 
was in session at the time. Its proceedings were 
suspended on the morning of that day to afford its 
members an opportunity to participate in the solem- 
nities of the occasion. The services were opened 
with an invocation by the Rev. John W. Nevin, 
Chairman of the Committee of Installation. After 
the devotional services had been concluded, Dr. 
Nevin delivered an extempore address. His re- 
marks were earnest and appropriate, and were ren- 
dered more impressive by the fact that the speaker 
was able to draw his lessons from his own experi- 
ence, having formerly occupied the same office 
himself. 

After taking the obligation of office, and listen- 
ing to the charge delivered to him by the Rev. 
Samuel R. Fisher, D.D., Dr. Harbaugh stepped 
within the chancel and delivered his address, which 
occupied about two hours, and which is considered 
by many theologians to be by far his ablest pro- 
duction. 

Synod afterwards requested that the address be 
handed over for publication, and the author com- 
plied. Whilst it was passing through the process 
of printing in Chambersburg, and after about one- 
half of it had been set up in type, manuscript, type 
15 



230 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



and all shared in the common ruin which attended 
the burning of Chambersburg by the Confederates 
on July 30, 1864. Thus the author supposed that 
a final disposition had been made of it. He was 
called upon, however, to reproduce the address, if 
possible, and pass it over to the Committee of Pub- 
lication, but it was a request most difficult to fulfil. 
Upon the completion of this difficult task Dr. 
Harbaugh wrote in a characteristic vein to Dr. 
Samuel R. Fisher under date of November 22, 1864: 

' ' Te Deum laudamus ! To-day I send you by mail 
(marked printer's copy), in care of I. R. Rodgers, the 
MSS. of the Inaugural. That was a job ! You look 
for it, if it is lost again I must have $500 for writing 
it again. It was the hardest job I have undertaken 
for a long while. The occasion was not before me, the 
stimulus was not at hand, the scaffolding had all been 
taken down, and I had to work myself into the subject 
again as at first. Fortunately I had a rough first draft. 
But the filling in had to be done again de novo. I be- 
lieve it is faithful — the thoughts are all there ; whether 
the style is as good I do not know. Now as the child 
is rescued from Rebel fire, do it up in a good dress. 
And as time has elapsed, do it up as quickly as possible. 
The spirit of the occasion must not die away before it 
appears. 

" I must read the proof . Were it the original copy, 
I would not care to trust in your hands, but it is not 
written in large copy hand, so it is not so clear, and it 
must be correct. It will not delay it much to pass the 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



231 



proof to me. Could I not put a brief note on the blank 
page opposite the title ? Perhaps the story of the fate 
of the original ought to be given in brief, and a state- 
ment of how I produced it so that it may not be thought 
to be another thing. The fact that I had the first 

rough sketch would fix that right 

Will you or have you re-written your charge ? or must 
I stand alone? If not, you ought to put in at the end 
the account of the proceedings as a historical matter." 

This inaugural was addressed to the learned pro- 
fessors and students of the Reformed Church Com- 
munion ; the Christology which he left to the people 
and which has been sung in many climes, and 
adopted by many a pious heart as a sufficient ex- 
pression of its abiding faith, is all summed up in 
that tender little hymn, " Jesus, I live to Thee." 

What shall be said here of the Guardian ? That 
little magazine which the founder and editor re- 
garded as peculiarly his own. It is more befitting 
with this, perhaps, than with any other of his pub- 
lications, that the author should speak for himself. 
When in 1867 he laid the editorship upon his 
friend, Dr. Bausman, he wrote : 

" Seventeen years ago, in our early ministry — full of 
youth and enthusiasm, we started the Guardian in 
Lewisburg, Pa. — started it with plenty of faith and 
hope, but without funds or subscribers. A kind prov- 
idence gave it success far beyond our most sanguine 
expectations. In 1850 we carried our sweet burden 



232 



IvlFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



with us to Lancaster, Pa. After ten and a half years 
we took it with us to Mercersburg, where it has again 
been our companion three years longer. In our study 
and as by our side, it has grown up from infancy 
through childhood into full youth. Every year has it 
hung upon our Christmas tree as an offering to Christ 
in the services of the young. To part with it, even 
with the assurance that it will live on, and perhaps live 
better than ever before, has to us something of the 
nature of a bereavement in the family. 

" How many, many memories, 
Come o'er my spirit now. ' ' 

In his diary of December 13, 1866, he wrote : 

' l This evening I wrote and sent on my last words as 
editor of the Guardian. I could not entitle the article 
1 parting words,' or anything of that kind. I must feel 
as if it were still my Guardian. Seventeen years thou 
hast been my companion — a beloved friend of my 
bosom. It seems like the end of a little world to give 
thee up. Yet it must be at some time, and why not 
now when duty seems to me so plainly to call for it. It 
may be a more important work, but it cannot be a 
pleasanter one that now calls me to part with the 
editorship of my Guardian. May God take care of the 
work I am now passing out of my hands and give me 
grace and fitness for the work that is now falling to me 
in its stead. ' ' 

The Pennsylvania-German poems which appeared 
from time to time in the Guardian were collected 
and published by Dr. B. Bausman in a volume 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



233 



called "Harbaugh's Harfe," in 1870. Dr. Bails- 
man, writing in The Reformed Church Messenger 
recently, said : 

1 'In 1868 the late Dr. W. A. Passavant, of the 
Lutheran Church, wrote the following to Dr. P. Schaff : 

1 ' ' I wish very much to suggest to you the publica- 
tion of Dr. H. Harbaugh's touching Pennsylvania- 
German poems. I have long thought that his poem enti- 
tled " Heemweh ,, was equal to Goldsmith's " Deserted 
Village." There is no one in the land better able to 
bring out such a work than you are ; and it might and 
would be a monument at once to the piety and genius 
of our departed Harbaugh, who was in every way wor- 
thy of the love of his own church and of that of the 
pure and good in all communions. As a delineator of 
the character and life exhibited in our slow old Penn- 
sylvania state he had no equal. And now I have re- 
lieved my mind of this burden of pious care for our de- 
parted poet-friend. ' 

1 ' Dr. Schaff laid this tender-spirited letter, with its 
pious request, upon my heart. The result is known. 
But for this timely request the unique poems of Har- 
baugh might still lie unread, in the old files of the 
Guardian. Much of the best work of our strongest 
men has never been published in permanent book form. 
It was simply spoken in the lecture room and on the 
pulpit, or published in the periodicals of the church. 
The results of the best and ripest scholarship of Har- 
baugh, Higbee, Apple, Weiser, and others are unread 
treasures, scattered loosely around in old periodicals, 
like so much literary lumber. ' ' 



234 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



The " Harfe" contains fifteen poems in the Penn- 
sylvania-German, and the author's own translation 
of four of them into English, among these being 
the two most popular and widely known ones — 
"Das Alt Schulhaus an der Krick," and " Heem- 
weh. " The volume also contains a brief sketch of 
Dr. Harbaugh' s life in Pennsylvania-German, by 
Dr. Bausman, and a poem entitled "Zum A'Denke 
An Heinrich Harbaugh," by his intimate friend 
the late Dr. Weiser. 

The 4l Harfe n is illustrated with six wood cuts 
made from original drawings. The picture of the 
Old School House, the Old Mill, the Harbaugh 
Home, and the Old Hearth, were all sketched on 
the spot in Franklin County, Pa. " Kerchegang in 
Alter Zeit," and " Heemweh," were drawn by an 
artist of Reading, Mr. Devlin. 

Dr. Harbaugh was frequently requested to pub- 
lish a collection of these poems in book form, but 
the wish of his many friends remained unfulfilled 
on account of his early death. The commission 
could not have been placed in worthier or more 
tender hands than Dr. Bausman's. " Harbaugh 
wrote these poems, not I," he writes, u but he was 
a dear friend of mine — is yet, although on the other 
side. A grateful love for him as well as for the 
people in whose language he sang these songs, in- 
duces me to publish this little work. The wish for 
its appearance — both in America and in Europe — 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 235 

has become pronounced. . . . This ' Harfe* gives 
a representation of the folk and family life of the 
Pennsylvania-German. Prom the cradle to the 
grave. From the family, the school and the church 
many a beautiful picture is painted. " 

Dr. Bausman closes his preface to the " Harfe " 
with this touching sentence: u Mochte die lieben 
Leser bitten, ' Die Harfe' nicht an die Weiden zu 
hangen, sondern recht oft ihre schonen Klange itn 
Kreise der Familie ertonenzu lassen," which being 
interpreted, means, " I would ask the dear readers 
not to hang the ' Harp' on the willows, but to 
allow its beautiful tones to be frequently heard in 
the family circle." 

The following words are taken from Dr. Schaff 's 
memorial sketch of Dr. Harbaugh, in the Christian 
World of January 9, 1868 : 

" As the poet in the Pennsylvania-German dialect, 
he stands alone, if we except an isolated attempt made 
before, namely, the touching evening hymn, 'Margets 
scheent die Sunn so schoe^ which was written by a 
Moravian minister (the late Rev. Mr. Rondthaler) , and 
published, with some alterations, in Schaff' s Kirchen- 
freund for 1849. I first directed his attention to this 
piece of poetry, and suggested to him the desireableness 
of immortalizing the Pennsylvania-German in song, 
before it dies out, as the Allemannian dialect has been 
immortalized by Hebel. He took up the hint and 
wrote his ' Schulhaus an der Krick,' which he modestly 



236 UFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

submitted to me, and which, when published in several 
newspapers, produced quite a sensation among the 
Pennsylvania- Germans, and found its way even to Ger- 
many. The ' Heemweh' and other pieces followed 
from time to time in his Guardian, and were received 
with equal favor. These poems can, of course, only be 
fully appreciated in Pennsylvania ; but in originality, 
humor, and genuine Volkston they are almost equal to 
the celebrated Allemannian poems of Hebel. They are 
pervaded, moreover, by a healthy, moral, and religious 
feeling. They deserve to be collected and published in 
book form either separately, or in connection with his 
volume of English poems.' ' 

The Pennsylvania-German is a beautiful dialect 
from the Palatinate, into which have crept many 
English words which have added to its utility but 
not to its softness and beauty. It has been used for 
the most part as a means of conversation, having in 
but few instances risen to the dignity of a written 
language. Its literature, however, has not been 
limited merely to humorous experiments made by 
philological students, as has been stated by a certain 
writer. "Heemweh" alone furnishes ample proof 
of the tender pathos of which this language is 
capable, and perhaps the most popular poem of all, 
" Das Alt Schulhaus an der Krick," is not only 
rich in humor, but singularly true to life in its 
descriptions, and pathetic in the undertone of sacred 
life and home-feeling that pervade its every line. 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 237 

Nothing could be more natural and truthful than 
the touching expression which Dr. Harbaugh gives 
to that sense of love for his mother which absence 
first revealed to him in its deepest meaning. Far 
away in the West, with rivers and mountains be- 
tween them, he unbosoms the beautiful secret of 
his heart's silent love ; and in after years, when 
memory presented it to him anew, he gave expres- 
sion to u Heemweh," in the only language that 
could have fittingly clothed his thoughts. 

It was thus that the scenes of his childhood were 
woven into his life and associations, and he never 
could break away from them without the pain of 
homesickness. He would at any time exchange the 
pomp of social pleasures, and even the triumphs of 
theological controversy, for a quiet lingering mem- 
ory of the summers of his childhood ; the dewy 
meadow, the twittering heat over the landscape like 
a swarm of silver-winged insects, the calm clover 
fields in red and white blossoms, the glad shout of 
the reaper, and the painful whine of the dogs, re- 
sponsive to the noonday horn ; the tinkling bells 
and the lowing and bleating of herds returning to 
their nightly shelter. His spirit gladly received 
and revived such scenes in all their richness, and 
memory treasured up for him the golden store. 

In " Der Alte Feierheerd," the old time hearth- 
fire, and other poems the reader is brought home to 
the winter of childhood days, combining the stern- 



238 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

est outdoor lessons with the sweetest heart teach- 
ings of the fireside. The sheet of snow on the 
fields, hardened and glistening in the sunlight, the 
piercing creak of the heavy wagon over the crisp 
and frozen road, and the merry jingle of the sleigh 
bells ; then the snow balls, the snow men, and the 
snow forts — the athletic feats upon the glassy pond, 
and the school house, with its recess, its balls, mus- 
ters, battles, races, and hillside sliding — all these, 
and much more, are called up with peculiar vivid- 
ness in this quaint and curious patois from the 
ancient Rhine country. 

" Of course," writes Dr. J. H. Dubbs in the 
Guardian, u Dr. Harbaugh's efforts, like those of 
other poets, were not of equal excellence. Thus 
his 4 Peewee,' though otherwise a fine poem, bears 
a strong, though of course undesigned, resemblance 
to Hebel's 4 Storch ;' while his c L,aw Bisness' is 
so much inferior to his other productions as hardly 
to appear to be from the same hand." 

It may be true that the fate of the Pennsylvania- 
German language is sealed, and that it will in time 
pass away as a practical means of communication, 
but it has a history and a literature that will endure 
to become the wonder of generations yet unborn 
who shall ponder over it through their smiles and 
their tears. 

In spite of the humorous speculation revealed in 
the translation of Hamlet, which has been made 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



239 



memorable by its rendering of that solemn declara- 
tion, " I am thy father's ghost," into " Ich bin deim 
dawdy set spook" let -the Pennsylvania-German 
jealously guard the dialect of his fathers, and care 
for it as Dr. Harbaugh asked him to cherish the old 
school house : 

" Ye, who shall live when I am dead — 

Write down my wishes quick — 

Protect it, love it, let it stand, 

A way -mark in this changing land — 

That school house at the creek." 

Never are the poets — the interpreters of the mys- 
teries of the human heart — more successful than 
upon the home theme. Whatever else that is beau- 
tiful they may have left behind, it is in their rural 
idyls that their names are most pleasantly and 
durably embalmed. It was his " Elegy" that made 
Gray's fame immortal. For Goldsmith it was his 
"Deserted Village. " For Burns, u The Cotter's 
Saturday Night ;" Rogers, his " Pleasures of Mem- 
ory ;" Thompson, his "Seasons;" Cowper, his 
"Task." The same may be said of many others 
in all lands and languages. What are these poems 
that stand out among the rest but songs of home, 
the echoes from the heart that memory returns in 
soft voices from childhood. These are the " wak- 
ings up from their temporary sleep of innocence of 
those deep intuitions and presentiments, which from 
the beautiful and imperishable fields of life behind 



240 



LIFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 



us, furnish us the strongest intimations, outside of 
positive revelation, of an immortality beyond the 
grave. ' ' 

It could not be otherwise than that a man of such 
positive nature as Dr. Harbaugh should create an- 
tagonisms. The zeal with which he pressed for- 
ward often brushed aside the usages of diplomacy 
and relegated moderation to the rear. The Rev. 
Dr. George H. Johnston, a nephew, who had ex- 
ceptional opportunities for knowing Dr. Harbaugh 
intimately, speaks to this point : 

u If you will allow me," he writes, "I would 
suggest a ruling characteristic of Dr. Harbaugh' s 
organization : His was a sanguine temperament, 
full of indomitable energy, persistent, hopeful, 
quick to see what ought to be done, and then, 
without any ado, going about doing it with might 
and main. He did not depend on others to outline 
work for him to do, but topics, subjects, sprang 
from his own mind and claimed his best powers. 
Another characteristic was his ready wit, humor, 
temper of mind, which buoyed him up, which 
helped him mightily to refresh himself, and shake 
off care, brighten weary and heavy laden clergy 
and laymen and fit them and him to renew their 
labors. This vein of good feeling, of wit, of invec- 
tive, of reductio ad absnrdum power, he often 
utilized to overthrow an argument, to confuse and 
confound advocates of untenable theories and illogi- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 24 1 

cal or absurd views. He reminded me of Abraham 
Lincoln now, of Washington Irving then. . . . " 

These phases of his character were best portrayed 
in his sympathies and labors in connection with the 
so-called " Liturgical Movement." 

The question of using the liturgy in the Re- 
formed Church was not a new one during the early 
ministry of Dr. Harbaugh, or even of Dr. Nevin. 
The Reformed Churches of the Reformation in both 
Germany and Switzerland were liturgical, and the 
early ministers of the Reformed Church in America 
used the Palatinate liturgy largely. Some of them 
had only manuscript copies of some of the old forms 
of worship and used them regularly in their services. 

As early as 1820 official notice was taken of the 
matter in accordance with the request of Maryland 
Classis when the synod met at Hagerstown, Mary- 
land. A request was made that the form of wor- 
ship be revised and published both in German and 
English. A committee was appointed to consider 
the matter, and thus, without making much head- 
way, the whole subject was before the church at its 
successive synods until 1841, when Dr. Mayer's 
Liturgy appeared in both languages. It was not, 
however, a success, only one small edition being 
printed, and no second edition was ever called for. 
The question was further agitated in much the same 
way, and was referred to committees whose mem- 
bers found it difficult to effect any satisfactory result. 



242 UFK OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

The " Mercersburg Movement" brought the sub- 
ject before the church in a stronger and somewhat 
different light during the decade from 1840 to 1850, 
and at the Synod of Norristown in October, 1849, 
quite a long report was submitted and after much 
debate a committee was appointed from whose 
labors finally came the Provisional Liturgy pub- 
lished in 1857. The discussions at this synod w 7 ere 
earnest and lengthy, and the question resolved 
itself into : Liturgy or no Liturgy. 

Speaking of the occasion from memory, Dr. 
Philip Schaff says : " Another speaker embodied 
his anti-liturgical prejudices in the lines, 

' ' ' Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try. ' 

But he was promptly silenced by the quotation 
of what immediately follows, in the same hymn of 
Montgomery, who, as a Moravian, was certainly in 
favor of liturgical worship : 

" ' Prayer the sublimest strains that reach 
The majesty on high.' " 

U A third opponent of the report asked the ques- 
tion : ' If I read another man's prayer, is it I who 
prays, or the one who wrote it?' He was effect- 
ively answered by another question : ' If you sing 
a hymn is it you that sings, or the man who com- 
posed it ; or must you make both the poetry and 
the music in order to use it as an act of worship ?' 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 243 

14 The last speech as far as I recollect was made by 
Dr. Nevin, with his usual solemnity and earnest- 
ness. He stated frankly, that the study of the 
church question ( had wrought a complete theolo- 
gical revolution in his mind and entirely removed 
his inherited Presbyterian prejudices against litur- 
gies.' " 

Dr. Harbaugh was a member of the committee 
appointed at Norristown and remained a member 
until the completion of the Provisional Liturgy in 
1857, and also served on the committee as it was 
afterwards called to active duty again. He was sec- 
retary of the committee and kept complete notes of 
all its meetings. Many of the conferences were 
held in his study at Lancaster and much of the 
work was done there. He was wholly in accord 
with those of the committee who advocated a com- 
plete liturgy which should embody forms of wor- 
ship for all services of the church, as well as for 
private devotion and special occasions. The extent 
of the labors of this committee can scarcely be esti- 
mated. Liturgical lore was explored from the 
original sources. The German liturgies and forms 
were translated and revised, and all the literature 
and history of the church as it pertained to the sub- 
ject was familiarized and presented by the various 
members. Drafts of prayers were submitted, freely 
criticized, altered, rewritten, and finally adopted. 
Thus the Provisional Liturgy was finally published 



244 



UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



without expense to the church in 1857 an( ^ given 
over for inspection. 

To guard against all mistakes, it was plainly- 
stated that the synod had not yet given to the work 
its sanction ; the liturgy carried with it no authority 
for the churches — nothing to make the use of it 
binding, nor obligatory in any direction. It was 
only put forth to meet what was believed to be a 
growing want of the Reformed Church. It was 
thought that years might be required to settle the 
question, and that the interest involved was so 
great that none should object to having years 
allowed, if necessary, for its proper determination. 

However, the liturgy was well received, the third 
edition having been called for almost in the same 
year of its publication. As stated above, the ques- 
tion was by no means settled, and at successive 
synods following the year 1857, ^ e subject was un- 
der discussion. Meantime the government of the 
church was so changed that the various synods were 
to be delegated to a general synod to meet every 
three years. The western branch of the church had 
taken up the liturgical question also, and so it came 
about that the whole subject was brought to the 
attention of the first General Synod at Pittsburg in 
1863. 

The committee that had been so faithful in its 
duties was restored to office by the Eastern Synod, 
and, at the first General Synod, a recommendation 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 245 

was sent to the Eastern Synod to go forward with 
the revision of the liturgy, according to its own 
judgment, so as to have it ready to be presented to 
the General Synod in 1866. With this kind of 
encouragement acting as a stimulus, the committee 
went to work again in good earnest. They held 
many meetings, receiving or rejecting their own 
contributions to the work, using the freest and 
most unsparing criticism, and had it finished and 
published for the Synod of York in October, 1866. 
The word liturgy had become offensive to many 
persons and in view of that fact, the work was 
called simply, " An Order of Worship for the Re- 
formed Church." 

The work justified the expectations of its friends. 
It bears on its face the indications of unwearied 
labor and perseverance. The spirit and character 
of the Provisional L,iturgy had been maintained, 
but various changes had been made, and it was then 
presented to the synod for adoption or rejection. 
In connection with its presentation the committee 
made a long report, embodying a brief history of 
the liturgical movement. 

The synod then referred the Order of Worship as 
presented, to a committee of its own members, who 
made a report, which is given in part from the life 
of Dr. Nevin, as stated by Dr. Theodore Appel : 

1 ' The report then concluded with several resolutions, 
recommending that the thanks of the synod be rendered 

16 



246 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

to the great Head of the Church, that this work, so far 
as the synod was concerned, was brought to a termina- 
tion ; that its thanks be tendered to the committee for 
the zeal, ability, and unrequited toil which they had 
displayed in the prosecution of the work, from the be- 
ginning to the end ; that the revised liturgy be referred 
to the General Synod for action ; that its optional use 
be allowed within the limits of the synod, until the 
whole question should be finally settled by the various 
classes and the General Synod, according to the consti- 
tution of the church. The report elicited considerable 
discussion, and aroused a deep interest in the commun- 
ity. Here, at this synod, the war against the Order of 
Worship and its tendencies, extending over a number 
of years, was initiated, w r hich on the whole probably 
did it more good than harm. Being the only one of ten 
opposed to the form of the revision, Dr. Bomberger had 
withdrawn from the committee, and from that time 
onward he fought the Order of Worship with such 
weapons as he deemed most effective. His speech at 
this synod was answered by Dr. Harbaugh in his own 
peculiar style, to the satisfaction of all liturgical men. 
Dr. Nevin and other members present did not deem it 
necessary to make any extended remarks or arguments, 
as the matter seemed to be in safe hands. The synod 
adopted the report by an overwhelming majority." 

Students of church history are familiar with the 
momentous debates of the General Synod at Day- 
ton, Ohio, in 1866. Dr. Nevin was the champion 
of the Revised Liturgy. Dr. Harbaugh closely 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



247 



supported him on the floor of synod. The ques- 
tion was first referred to a committee of nine, fairly 
representing the different parts of the church in 
numerical strength. There was, of course, a mi- 
nority and majority report, and then began the 
great controversy. Dr. Nevin's argument, litur- 
gical, historical, and theological, occupied two 
sessions of the synod. A western member occa- 
sionally interrupted him by asking annoying ques- 
tions, and was answered so appropriately, that a 
distinguished military officer, General McCook, 
whispered to a friend by his side that the member 
referred to " had better retreat and get into his 
bomb proof. " This questioner did retreat and 
others with him, as the theological artillery explo- 
ded over their heads. 

The majority report was brief, and simply recom- 
mended "that the Western Synod, in conformity 
with its own wish, be authorized to continue its 
labors in preparing its own liturgy ; that the Re- 
vised Liturgy should be allowed to be used as a 
proper order of worship in the congregations of the 
Reformed Church, and it should be understood that 
this action was not intended to interfere in any 
way with the freedom of ministers or congrega- 
tions who might not be prepared to use the liturgy 
in whole or in part." 

The minority report was much more lengthy and 



248 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

pointed out its various grievances and all its objec- 
tions to the Revised Liturgy. 

After great discussion the majority report was 
adopted by a vote in which all the eastern ministers 
sustained it except five or six, and the majority on 
the whole vote was seven. 

The action did not mean that the Revised Lit- 
urgy was ratified and endorsed by the General 
Synod, but simply that it was to have fair play and 
was not to be u subjected to the vandalism of being 
made so much raw material merely for the manu- 
facture of another." 

At length the church began to grow weary of 
controversy, and at the General Synod at Lancaster 
in 1878, the different branches of the church 
seemed to be drifting towards the state of peace in 
which it may be found laboring to-day. Then came 
the Peace Commission and the Directory of Wor- 
ship, or fourth liturgy. With this liturgy, and with 
the extent of its adoption in the church, all good 
Reformed people are thoroughly familiar. 

During the liturgical controversy the name of Dr. 
Harbaugh and that of Dr. J. H. A. Bomberger were 
recorded frequently as standing decidedly opposed 
to each other. Dr. Bomberger was not an anti- 
liturgical man, but rather came to be an anti-revised 
liturgy man, and always combatted the tendency of 
liturgical direction as advocated by Dr. Harbaugh. 
He had been a member of the committee that pre- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



249 



pared the Provisional Liturgy, but withdrew from 
the committee after it had resumed its labors on the 
Revised Liturgy. He waged his war with great 
bitterness on the floor of synod, and his shafts were 
frequently thrust against Dr. Harbaugh as the rep- 
resentative of those who upheld the liturgy. Dr. 
Harbaugh in turn sought with all the power of in- 
vective and sarcasm with which he was peculiarly 
gifted, to lay bare the errors which he conceived to 
be lurking in Dr. Bomberger's arguments. 

Thus not only in speech but through the medium 
of the church papers and the Mercersburg Review 
as well, the controversy waxed earnest and ardent. 
That the feeling at times became somewhat per- 
sonal can scarcely be doubted, for these earnest 
men were unbending in their convictions and the 
contest was shaking the very foundations of the 
church. 

But neither of these contending warriors went so 
far as did Dr. Luther, when he refused the hand of 
fellowship extended to him by Zwingli, though it 
was pleaded for in tears, when the Reformers met at 
Marburg in 1529. Nor did the controversy de- 
scend to such grossness of language as that which 
characterized the discussions between Puritan and 
Churchman in England. The Puritan pamphleteer, 
for instance, addressed the very head of the English 
church as " Doctor of Diviltrie and Deane of Sarum 
. . . you grosse beast ;" while in reply the Church- 



250 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



man states that he thought his Puritan adversary 
had died, or in other words, "that your grout- 
headed holinesse had turned uppe your heels like 
a tired jade in a medow and snorted out your 
sorrowefull soule, like a mesled hogge on a mucke- 
hille." 

Whatever may be thought of this great storm and 
long stress of weather that fell upon the church, by 
those who are inclined rather to the quiet and 
peaceful side of religious life, this is nevertheless 
true, that the church increase was greater at that 
period than at any time in her history in America. 

Any fair presentation of the liturgical question, 
or the frank statement of any one man's part in it, 
surely cannot at this late day serve to disturb the 
peace of the church. The contest was earnestly 
fought out. No one was ever in doubt as to where 
Dr. Harbaugh stood upon the question from its be- 
ginning to the time of his death. His conscien- 
tious labors as a member of the committee and his 
abilities as displayed in the Provisional Liturgy, 
were generously recognized by those who saw fit to 
oppose the liturgical tendency in general. 

It may be doubted whether there is any where in 
the English language a more perfect specimen of 
trenchant sarcasm and invective than is contained 
in the review of Dr. Bomberger's funeral discourse 
on the occasion of the funeral of Dr. Samuel Helf- 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



251 



fenstein. Dr. Bomberger took that occasion to set 
forth his views upon the questions which were then 
before the church, touching indirectly upon the 
subject of the liturgy and the priestly character of 
the Christian ministry. In the Mercersburg Review 
of April, 1867, Dr. Harbaugh reviewed the sermon 
at length, but, in the midst of his criticisms, he 
states that u with the author of the sermon we never 
have had, and never intend to have any personal 
quarrel, but with his publicly expressed views on 
the subject in hand — ever !" 

But it must not be forgotten that these men were 
laboring in the same general cause. They were 
nearly of the same age, born within the same year. 
Dr. Bomberger was a graduate of Marshall College 
and the Seminary at Mercersburg, was pastor in 
his early manhood for five years at the old home of 
Dr. Harbaugh — Waynesboro, Pa., and served for a 
number of years with Dr. Harbaugh on the litur- 
gical committee. 

At a special meeting of the Synod of the Re- 
formed Church, at Harrisburg, Pa., in March, 1868, 
to elect a successor to Dr. Harbaugh in the semi- 
nary, when a resolution was offered looking to the 
publication of a memorial volume of the late Pro- 
fessor Harbaugh, Dr. Bomberger, in connection 
with the adoption of the resolution, made some 
touching remarks in honor of the memory of Dr. 



252 



LIFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 



Harbaugh. Dr. Bomberger lived to be quite an 
aged man, and, like his antagonist on the liturgical 
question, he became somewhat tempered and mel- 
lowed in his views of church questions. This was 
amply shown only a short time before his death, 
when he greeted a son of Dr. Harbaugh tenderly, 
and spoke quite at length with unmistakable feel- 
ing and sincerity of the father. 

Upon another phase of the liturgical controversy, 
let the words of Dr. Harbaugh himself serve to 
close the subject : 

1 ' The appearance of our new liturgy has given occa- 
sion, in some quarters, for the display of a very flat 
kind of pedantry, which is deserving of notice only on 
account of the superficiality which it betrays. Thus, 
the blind tell the blind, that the greater part of it is 
taken from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. 
The truth is, there is scarcely a respectable liturgy in 
existence that was less used in the preparation of the 
new liturgy. That some of the forms in both books 
are similar, results purely from the fact, that both are 
drawn from the common liturgical sources, as they ex- 
isted in the earlier church, and as they had been, to 
some extent, developed under an evangelical form in 
the Protestant churches of the Continent, before the 
Reformation had its faintest dawn in England. 

* ' These are facts ; and others might here be pre- 
sented, which show that the English liturgy is far more 
indebted to Reformed liturgies of the Continent, than 



THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS. 



253 



the present liturgy is to it. For every single page that 
the new liturgy may be shown to contain of matter 
from the Book of Common Prayer, that is original 
there, we will show more than one for which the com- 
pilers of that book were indebted to the liturgical 
labors of the Reformers on the Continent. " 



VII. BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 

DR. HARBAUGH'S departure from Lebanon 
after a pastorate of only three years, was occa- 
sioned by his election to the Professorship of Di- 
dactic and Practical Theology in the seminary at 
Mercersburg, Pa. He was chosen by the synod at 
its annual sessions he^d in Carlisle, Pa., on his 
birthday, October 28, 1863. 

His farewell sermon to St. John's Reformed con- 
gregation at Lebanon was preached on the evening 
of Sunday after New Year, 1864. It abounds in 
solemn and affectionate expressions of good-will for 
this people, from whom he had not expected so 
soon to be separated. 

" We part," he said, " with an intelligent convic- 
tion on both sides that it ought so to be. Though 
abundantly assured of your sincere affection — an 
assurance signed and sealed by a thousand kind- 
nesses — all acquiesce in the separation as being 
necessary and proper." 

He arrived in Mercersburg with his family on 
January 7, 1864, an( ^ f° r a short time resided in the 
house north of the seminary building. He then 
moved to the professor's house on the south side of 
the campus, which became his permanent residence. 
He at once entered upon his new duties, and, as 




GROUP GENERAL VIEW OP COLLEGE 
SOUTH COTTAGE. DR. HARBADGH'S RESIDENCE 1864 TO 1867 



BACK TO OLD MBRCBRSBURG. 



255 



early as January 15th, delivered his first lecture in 
the seminary, it being introductory to the study of 
dogmatic history. Dr. Thomas G. Apple, then 
pastor at Greencastle, gives the first real glimpse of 
the new professor in a letter written to Dr. Baus- 
man : 

' 'I have been to see Dr. Harbaugh. He is at work with 
his sleeves rolled up, but somewhat nervous, I think, 
on account of his close application, and sense of the 
new responsibilities resting upon him. The students 
(in the seminary) are well pleased. He does not write 
much for the M., but it is no wonder, when you con- 
sider what he has to do. I cannot see how he manages 
to write so much.'* 

Dr. Bausman gives this further picture, much in 
the same connection, writing of the late Dr. Apple : 

" Drs. Harbaugh and Higbee were then at Mercers- 
burg, nine miles from Greencastle (Dr. Apple's home). 
The three with their families formed a delightful social 
circle. Their mutual visits were frequent and most 
cordial. These three royal men beautifully stood by 
each other in trouble. They found a delightful com- 
pensation for the solitude of their village life in a liter- 
ary and social club. Usually one would read a paper, 
which formed the basis of their intellectual feast. 
With their many duties the preparation of such a paper 
sometimes became an irksome burden. Dr. A. writes 
on the eve of a club meeting ; * I feel out of sorts that 
my essay has turned out a kind of failure. This thing 



256 UFB OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

of writing is not always an easy matter. It is to me 
sometimes like pushing a heavy load tip hill. * 

* ' Here is a little picture of a club meeting at his 
house. It happened on a New Year's day : 

' ' We had a house full of visitors. Besides the mem- 
bers of the club, Mrs. and four children w r ere 

with us. Altogether there were twenty-four guests 
for awhile. Fortunately we had a large fat turkey. 
Higbee read an elaborate paper. Harbaugh' s was 
good. Yes, Harbaugh is gifted in prayer. I once 
remarked this to Higbee. It is partly constitutional. 
But do you not think it is also partly the result of his 
long study and training as a member of the liturgical 
committee ? Praying well is one of the most important, 
and at the same time most difficult parts of our public 
ministrations. 

* ' One needs unction in reading a prayer. Harbaugh 
spoke of the want of heart in the reading of the litur- 
gical services at Dr. 's funeral. He said the 

brother read in a cold and heartless manner. ' ' 

During the early months of 1864 Dr. Harbaugh 
put his powers of endurance to a severe test. He 
drafted lectures in the various departments of semi- 
nary work, inaugurated his class room work at once 
and met his students regularly in accordance with 
the plan of recitations then in practice. In addition 
to this he retained his editorship of the Guardian 
until he became editor of the Review in January, 
1867. 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBUR.G. 



257 



Along with his preliminary and introductory lec- 
tures in 1864, he also had the preparation of his 
inaugural address, elsewhere referred to, which was 
not delivered until the following May. 

Meanwhile the liturgical committee had been 
called into action again and was pursuing its labors, 
which resulted in the Revised Liturgy published 
in 1866, and which became the subject of the great 
discussions at the Synod of York in October, 1866, 
and at the General Synod at Dayton, Ohio, a few 
weeks later. 

On Monday evening, January 18, 1864, in accord- 
ance with previous arrangements, the students of 
the seminary called upon Dr. Harbaugh for the 
purpose of extending to him and his family a wel- 
come to their new home. One of their number, 
now known to the church as the eloquent and 
learned Dr. J. Spangler Kieffer, acted as spokesman. 
Among other things in his address of welcome, he 
said : 

1 ' You enter upon a field of labor in which men of no 
ordinary character have preceded you. Here labored, 
for a time, Dr. Mayer, the pioneer professor in the estab- 
lishment of the seminary ; here labored and died the 
learned and lamented Ratich ; and the revered names 
of Drs. Nevin, Schaff, and Wolff shall always stand in 
inseparable connection with the Theological Seminary 
of Mercersburg. To your keeping is now committed, 
in part, the honor of this seminary. We do not fear 



258 WFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

for the result, but are confident that this institution of 
our church will continue to maintain in the future the 
character she has sustained so well throughout the 
vicissitudes of her early history.' ' 

In reply Dr. Harbaugh spoke with much feeling 
and quite at length to the students. His closing 
words are given below : 

' ' I am here — and among you — in some respects as a 
stranger ; but in others not. Many memories crowd in 
upon me ! New are all things and yet old. Those 
mountains, these surrounding hills and fields, these 
buildings, this campus with its shrubbery and trees, are 
all as sacredly familiar to me as the scenes of my own 
childhood. Twenty years of varied labors and experi- 
ences have intervened between my life as I left and my 
life as I return. Though the Alma Mater has since 
glided silently into something more of the venerable- 
ness of age, she seems more lovely and loving to the 
returning than she did to the departing son. Had I 
honors, how filially and gladly would I use them to 
crown her venerable head ! 

"There is this difference between you, as you are 
now around me, and myself — you are preparing to pass 
out into the church to fulfil the duties of the pastoral 
office, whilst I am returning from its direct and active 
labors. Many of its pleasures and toils are no doubt 
known to you, while many others are to be known only 
by experience. But of one thing I may assure you — in 
your after life, when engaged in the responsible duties 
of the pastoral office, you will often look back upon the 



BACK TO OLD MBRCBRSBURG. 



259 



years of your seminary course as among the pleasantest 
of your life ; and should any of you be so unfortunate 
as to make a careless use of them, the fact will furnish 
you ever after with matter for bitter and lasting regret. 
This is the plastic and formative period of your lives, 
and the determining influence of this period will give 
direction and character to all of life that comes after. ' ' 

When he had closed, the professors and students 
extended to him the hand of welcome and the 
remainder of the evening was spent in social con- 
versation interspersed with music, vocal and instru- 
mental. 

Dr. Harbaugh took up his residence in what is 
now known at Mercersburg College as South Cot- 
tage, w 7 here he lived the four busy years that were 
left to him. That he had premonitions of a phys- 
ical breaking down is beyond question. He seemed 
to think that it was necessary to crowd the work, 
and that certain things must be accomplished. He 
tried faithfully to heed the warnings of his physician 
to desist from mental labor, but so eager was he to 
meet the expectations of those who had called him 
to such a responsible position in the church, that 
he longed to get back to his desk. Now and then 
he could be lured away to the mountain by Elder 
Hause for a squirrel hunt ; Dr. Higbee's invitation 
to go fishing or to take a swim in the creek was 
always accepted. His old love of working in wood 
never forsook him, and in winter he would build a 



2 6o IvlFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

sled large enough for a party of his friends, who 
were delighted at any time to accompany him to 
the near-by towns on a crisp winter day or on a 
moonlight night. Every summer he looked for- 
ward with pleasure to his trip up through Path 
Valley, and on to Lewisburg by horse and carriage, 
where his family usually spent a part of their vaca- 
tion. It was upon one of these journeys that he 
came to the blacksmith's shop with the droll sign 
above its door, "The Live Blacksmith." He was 
so much amused at the sign, and so well pleased 
with the genial manner of the smith himself, that 
he wrote an article for the Guardian using the live 
blacksmith for his theme, and drawing many use- 
ful lessons from the incident. 

Upon one occasion, leaving his family to prolong 
their vacation at Lewisburg, Dr. Harbaugh made 
the journey by carriage alone back to Mercersburg. 
Of this trip and his arrival home, he writes to his 
wife : 

" On Friday, while the evening star hung brilliantly 
and beautifully over the fluted mountain west of Mer- 
cersburg, and the last faint gleams of departing day 
still shone and lingered along the western horizon, 
there might have been seen a solitary buggy-man 
wending his way through between Ritchie's house and 
barn, crossing the little stream, threading along the 
rocky slope past our fat washerwoman's humble hut, 
trotting up seminary lane past the mansion of the Pro- 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 2 6l 

fessor of Church History, entering the gate, himself 
acting as porter, and alighting in the campus — greeted 
only by the faithful Rover ! He speedily unhitched his 
horse, and entered through the silent lawn of the man- 
sion of the Professor of Theology and put up his horse 
in the stable. All was darkness and silence, save the 
sound of a distant flute, supposed to be Prof. Moses'. * 
I had good luck all the way except in MiflBintown, 
where I asked the way to Academia, and three persons 
tried to tell me all at once. I could understand neither 
of them, for all talked at once, and such a ridiculous 
jabbering I never heard. I had a basket full of mail 
awaiting me, and it has kept me busy to dispose of it." 
The seminary, like the community itself, felt 
deeply the depression of war times. In the sum- 
mer of 1863, and even earlier, the county of Frank- 
lin was over-run by both Union and Confederate 
armies. The capture of a portion of Lee's wagon 
train on its retreat from Gettysburg, landed a large 
company of prisoners of war, and many sick and 
wounded soldiers of the South in Mercersburg. 
The arrival of this motley crew on a quiet Sunday 
evening created a new excitement and afforded one 
more channel through which the thoughts of the 
people could be diverted from the existing and im- 
pending dangers. Fears that an attempt to rescue 
the prisoners might be made created great uneasi- 
ness, but the knowledge that the energies of L,ee 
and his cohorts were all centered upon a safe and 

*A colored man employed by Dr. Apple. 

17 



262 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

rapid retreat into Virginia dispelled all this. The 
wounded found places of rest and received prompt 
medical treatment. The seminary building was 
turned into a hospital for the time being and was 
soon filled with wounded men. The Sunday-school 
room of the Reformed Church was also filled with 
wounded and a number of them were placed on the 
porch in front of the church. In the same way 
the basement of the Methodist Church was occupied, 
and other small buildings throughout the town 
were made use of. Again in the summer of 1864 
the little village was invaded, but more fortunate 
than its neighbor, Chambersburg, it escaped the 
torch. While the burning of Chambersburg caused 
untold immediate and consequent distress to its 
citizens, yet the calamity reached far beyond the 
boundaries of the town. Dr. Harbaugh, as well as 
other ministers of the church, lost valuable books 
and manuscript, and the loss of the manuscript of 
his inaugural address, elsewhere referred to, was 
one that could not be restored. During all these 
troublous times, Dr. Harbaugh maintained a hope- 
ful spirit and never wavered in the faith that the 
Union would be restored. When others around 
him became depressed on account of reports favor- 
able to the Confederate cause, he would say, " Wait 
until you hear from our army again. " But the 
weary struggle came to an end at last, and in his 
diary of April 10, 1865, he made this entry : 




DR. HARBAUGH AND HIS SUCCESSOR, DR. JOHNSTON, AT ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, 
LEBANON, PA. 



BACK TO OLD MKRCBRSBURG. 263 

1 ' To-day at half -past eleven the dispatch was brought 
to my study giving notice of the surrender of L,ee, and 
that Sherman had again whipped Johnson. The bells 
were rung an hour from 1 2. 30 o'clock on. The flag was 
raised on the seminary and the students sang the ' Star 
Spangled Banner' on the cupola." 

On the day of national mourning for the death of 
President Lincoln, June 1, 1865, Dr. Harbaugh de- 
livered a discourse at Clearspring, Maryland, on 
" Treason and Law," which was published in a little 
pamphlet at the request of his audience. 

The music of that tenth day of April, 1865, 
lingers upon the memory of the present writer as 
almost the only recollection of war times, and al- 
though he may not have understood it or appreci- 
ated the importance of the great event which had 
called forth such a demonstration, yet he knew as 
well that it was a time of rejoicing as that the fol- 
lowing week was a period of gloom and sorrow over 
the land. There were some excellent voices among 
the students of that day, and as the stars and 
stripes were once again unfurled to the breeze from 
the seminary cupola, the words of Key's immortal 
song ascended in strains of music that perhaps had 
never before clothed them with a deeper meaning. 
In the years 1866 and 1867, the effects of peace be- 
gan to be felt throughout the land, and the people 
of Mercersburg and its institutions of learning 
shared in its blessings. 



264 M F 3 OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

The social relations at Mercersburg were very- 
pleasant. During his pastorates at L,ewisburg and 
Lancaster Dr. Harbaugh had made frequent pil- 
grimages to the little mountain town, and he was 
by no means a stranger upon his arrival there in 
January, 1864. His " class of little girls" had 
grown to womanhood, but they still remembered 
their singing teacher of the early forties. The 
members of the choir at the Reformed Church also 
knew him as their former leader. 

He took great interest in pruning and caring for 
the trees that grew in the campus. He knew their 
names and manner of growth, and loved to watch 
the development and budding forth of each pecu- 
liar kind. He cultivated a fine garden and aimed 
to have the choicest fruit. His quince trees were 
the pride of the village, and the old fashioned 
apple and quince paring parties which he intro- 
duced at his home were occasions of great jollifica- 
tion for the students and others who were invited 
to take part. How varied his daily occupations 
were may be indicated by a single extract from his 
diary : 

" Wrote some letters, worked in the garden. Went 
down town to have my axe fixed. Planted some grape 
vines. Wrote for Messenger and Guardian" 

A bereavement like that which came upon the 
families of Drs. Schaff, Wm. M. Nevin, Thomas G. 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 265 

Apple, and Higbee at Mercersburg, also cast its 
shadow upon the home of Dr. Harbaugh. On Easter 
Sunday, April 1, 1866, George Merrill Harbaugh, 
an infant son, aged eight months, died after a brief 
illness and was tenderly laid to rest on the follow- 
ing Tuesday. Miss Troupe, now Mrs. Dr. John B. 
Kieffer of the college at Lancaster, made a sketch 
of the boy, from which she afterwards painted a 
portrait in oil, which became a much cherished pos- 
session of Mrs. Harbaugh in after years. 

Dr. Harbaugh was one of the original incorpo- 
rators or Board of Regents of Mercersburg College, 
which was the worthy successor of Marshall Col- 
lege, and the immediate predecessor of the " New 
Mercersburg" now under the successful presidency 
of Dr. William Mann Irvine. The charter was 
received from the court in October, 1865, providing 
for i l the education of youth in the learned langua- 
ges, the arts, sciences, and useful literature," a 
liberal charter in its character and wide in its scope. 
Its history is interwoven with the history of all the 
institutions of Mercersburg, and in great part em- 
bodies the growth of the Reformed Church in 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia from 1835 
to the present time. 

Much of the work in the seminary was done in 
the early part of the day. For a long time prayers 
were held as early as 5.30 a.m. and Dr. Harbaugh's 
favorite hours for lecture were from 7 to 9, and from 



266 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

ii to 12. During these years of his professorship 
he was constantly called upon by the church for 
special work, and he always responded cheerfully. 
He also preached nearly every Sunday in the 
churches of nearby towns, especially in the Clear- 
spring charge, which he supplied regularly for a 
time, until the arrival of Mr. Goodrich, who was 
recommended to the people by Dr. Harbaugh him- 
self, and who has (1899) entered into rest after a 
faithful pastorate of thirty-three years. 

While it was characteristic of Dr. Harbaugh, in 
the contemplation of any subject, to go to the 
sources, and to set forth the results of his burrow- 
ing, and his own views thereon at length, yet in 
his later writings, and especially in his extempore 
addresses, and his lectures at the seminary, he de- 
veloped a tendency to epigram, and has left to the 
church some concise expressions which have been 
accepted as the best. Such for instance, is the 
term " Messianic Ordination, " which he applied as 
descriptive of the baptism of our Lord, and the 
descent of the spirit of God upon Him like a dove. 

So when the criticism of a certain clergyman, 
that Dr. Harbaugh made too much of Christmas, 
which happened at that time to fall on Sunday, 
came to his knowledge, his reply was : " Say to him, 
please, that Christmas is a greater day than Sunday." 

His peculiar power of illustrating and developing 
a thought by drawing upon nature and natural ob- 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 267 

jects, is apparent everywhere in his writings. The 
reader may casually turn the pages of his published 
volumes, and find many such illustrations as are 
here given : 

11 As the eye that sees cannot see itself, so any great move- 
ment, in any given age, can never directly and fully understand 
itself, or measure the meaning of the activities and tendencies 
which strive and struggle in its own bosom." 

' ' The tree must ever draw life from its roots ; the strength 
of a stream must ever be replenished from its fountains : so is 
the nation and the church, in the divine order, ever dependent 
for vitality and vigor on its past history. ' ' 

11 As the setting sun leaves first a glory, then a twilight, and 
at last darkness ; so the deeds of the past, as they sink beyond 
our personal recollection, are first bright, then dim, and then 
gone !" 

' ' As the noble Rhine, which in its course over many a 
league, waters fair meadows and blesses smiling vineyards, 
babbles its infant song on her bosom, so has this wonderful 
land (Switzerland) nursed and sent forth streams of history 
which have since gladdened many a heart and heritage in 
church and state." 

" Thus the broad surface of nature becomes to us a grand 
panorama, passing before us as the seasons pass, revealing in 
each move some new representation of God's wisdom and ways. 
Stupid indeed must he be who is not able to look and learn." 

In his series of articles in the Guardian exposing 
various kinds of humbug, his powers of wit and 
sarcasm were allowed freer play perhaps than in 
any of his other writings. In the September num- 
ber, 1856, appeared a book notice which found its 
way into the Guardian without the knowledge of 



268 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

the editor. It was favorable to a publication which 
Dr. Harbaugh had previously refused to notice. 
In the following month the Guardian appeared 
with an article on the subject in which the editor 
paid his respects to the book in question in no un- 
certain terms, and dismissed the subject in the 
following words : 

" Now, therefore, to all to whom these presents may 
come, the editor of the Guardian sends greeting : and 
he disowns the recommendation given to the book in 
toto — he protests against being forced to say what he 
does not wish to say — and asks that if any one wishes 
to buy said note-book, he do it, like General Jackson, 
* on his own responsibility' and not from any recom- 
mendation purporting to be from the Guardian, whether 
it be written, printed, pasted, preached, prayed or 
sung." 

Many anecdotes are still abroad among his friends 
illustrative of his rich humor. Upon the occasion 
of his visit to Waynesboro, he stopped at the sad- 
dler shop of Lewis Detrich, a pleasant resort for 
the ministers of the Reformed Church, and was 
informed that one of his Waynesboro friends wanted 
to see him, whereupon he said: "Tell the gentle- 
man that I am now visible. " 

Then, too, his translation of the Latin phrase, 
<l Non omnes possumus omnia, " We are not all 
possums, grows more intense in its drollery the 
longer one contemplates it. 



BACK TO OlyD MBRCBRSBURG. 269 

Before leaving Lancaster Dr. Harbaugh was in- 
formed through Bishop Alonza Potter, that the 
Board of Trustees of Union College, at the com- 
mencement held July 26, i860, had conferred upon 
him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. 
This was regarded by many of his friends as a well- 
merited distinction. 

Not among the least tributes to his greatness are 
the assertions that have been made from time to time 
since his death, that Dr. Harbaugh was tending to- 
wards some particular denomination — that, had he 
lived, he would have come into this or that partic- 
ular fold of the Christian church. No one who will 
study his life, and his works that are based on the 
tenets of the Heidelberg Catechism, can ever arrive 
at such conclusion. He had examined and settled 
the question for himself early in life and up to the 
year of his death had not found any reason for dis- 
turbing his conclusion. Moreover, there need be 
no speculation as to what his life work would have 
been. On his forty-ninth birthday, October 28, 
1866, only a year before his death, he makes the 
following record : 

' ' If God grants me health and life I hope to finish 
what I now feel still to be my work — that is to organize, 
develop, and illustrate a system of Christological The- 
ology. To this I propose to devote chiefly the remain- 
der of my life." 



270 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Thus with disposition mellowed and softened by 
experience ; with zeal and energy unabated, but 
stripped of the impulsiveness of younger years — 
with mind self disciplined and well stored with the 
knowledge of his sacred calling — he was stricken 
down. He lingered for a few months, tenderly 
cared for by those he loved, but gradually drifting 
away beyond human aid, until the veil was lifted 
and he was numbered among the sainted dead. 

His only desire to recover was for the love of his 
family and that he might continue to labor for the 
church. Beyond these things he had no wish to 
live. u No wonder," he said, on awakening once 
from what seemed an unconscious stupor, " that the 
early church saw the blood of the atonement even 
on the leaves of the trees." At another time, when 
aroused from such a state, he said to a friend, " You 
have called me back from the golden gates. n Dur- 
ing an interval of consciousness he spoke with calm- 
ness of his approaching end. Not many days be- 
fore his death he remarked to a friend who nursed 
him, " Some of these afternoons I will take my de- 
parture. n * 

While yet in his pastorate at Lewisburg, Dr. 
Harbaugh was married to Mary Louisa Linn, a 
daughter of James F. Linn, Esq., a lawyer and 

*Upon the theme, "You have called me back from the golden gates," 
Dr. Cyrus Cort wrote a poem which was published in the Guardian, and 
which was regarded by Drs. Schaff, Apple, and others as being very beau- 
tiful and appropriate. 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 



271 



member of his church. As a child and young 
woman she had spent the first twenty years of her 
life around a refined and Christian fireside, and 
under the influence of intelligent and gentle parents. 
After the death of her husband she moved to Lewis- 
burg, where she lived for three years, and then 
returned to Mercersburg, where she devoted herself 
to the education of her children until the summer 
of 1885. Then, with her children well grown to 
man and womanhood, she removed to Bryn Mawr, 
Pa., where nearly twelve years later she entered 
into rest, February 13, 1897, * n her seventieth year. 
She sleeps at the cemetery of Old Saint David's 
Church, Radnor, a quiet and beautiful spot within 
five miles of her late home. Services were con- 
ducted by her pastor, the Rev. Henry Harbaugh 
Apple, assisted by the Rev. Cyrus J. Musser, editor 
of the Messenger, and by the Rev. W. H. Miller, 
D.D., of Bryn Mawr, a devoted friend of the family. 
It was her disposition to be cheerful and hopeful 
of good for the future. She never faltered in the 
faith of which her husband so ably taught, and 
whose labors she so nobly shared until the end. She 
had a high conception of the dignity and sacred 
character of the holy ministry, and her gentle words 
of sympathy and encouragement for the young cler- 
gymen of the church are well remembered. She 
had a familiar acquaintance with many a timid 



272 



LIFK OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 



young parson and with the struggling student life 
of Mercersburg. 

Dr. Callender, who knew her well in early days, 
has written: u Her mild and pleasing cordiality 
will be recollected with a sad pleasure by those 
whose privilege it was to meet her in her home, 
especially during the later years of her husband's 
life at Mercersburg. She was a woman of devout 
spirit and of a more than ordinary reserved and re- 
ceptive disposition, and thus became the satisfying 
object of Dr. Harbaugh 's deep and absorbing affec- 
tion, while her mildness happily complemented that 
ardent zeal with which he asserted his convictions 
of truth and duty. There was a company of 
neighboring ministers who in response to his invi- 
tation would gather in that home, and while earn- 
est discussions were agitating the whole church, 
would study the questions which were exercising 
its mind and heart. Dr. Harbaugh was the master- 
spirit in those meetings." 

Mrs. Harbaugh was spared the suffering of a lin- 
gering sickness. While for some months it was 
apparent that she was growing frail of body, yet in 
spirit she remained ever cheerful, and it was but 
three or four days before the end came, that her 
family realized the probability of such a loss. We 
may well believe that although she was u so tired" 
all through that long night, yet the approaching 
dawn had in store for her a sacred rest and peace 



BACK TO OlyD MKRCBRSBURG. 



273 



which only the rapt and parting soul may know ; 
and that what broke upon our spirits as a chilly, 
desolate day, was upon her pale and wasted brow 
u the gentle breath of eternal morning." 

Of Dr. Harbaugh's first marriage, one child sur- 
vives, Mary Olivia, the widow of the late Dr. S. 
T. Lineaweaver, Lebanon, Pa. Of his second mar- 
riage, there are four sons and two daughters living: 
Wilson- 1* Harbaugh, Margaret Anna, Henry Lange, 
Mary Louisa, and John A. , living at Bryn Mawr, 
Penna. , and Linn Harbaugh, Chambersburg, Pa. 

It has already been noticed how the author of 
"The Fathers of the Reformed Church," while 
absorbed in the preparation of life-sketches, espe- 
cially those of the earliest period, had frequent 
occasion to deplore the fact that the work had been 
so long neglected. In many instances there was 
absolutely nothing upon which the author could 
base an estimate of the character and abilities of 
his subject. 

It is not so, however, in the case of Henry Har- 
baugh. In the several issues of The Reformed 
Church Messenger of January and February, 1868, 
the months following his death, there have been 
preserved the affectionate and able tributes of those 
who stood very near to him both personally and in 
the common cause of the church and its institution 
of learning. Some of these are here given in part, 



274 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



as supplemental to the eulogy by Dr. Gerliart at 
the opening of this volume. 

From the pen of his intimate friend Dr. Gans, 
the following words were recorded in the Messenger 
of January 22 : 

' ' Dr. Harbaugh was ardent in everything he under- 
took, and his ardency led him to undertake a great 
many things — all of which he pressed forward with 
heroic courage, and made to bloom at last in great 
success. His industry, as a student in the vast field of 
truth, was untiring. In his writings, he shows how 
varied and broad was the range of his thought. He 
was at home no less in the field of history than of 
theology ; and in the practical Christian life he showed 
the presence of the same high gift, baptized with equal 
spiritual ardor. This ardency, guided by correct judg- 
ment, gave a peculiar charm to his words. His ser- 
mons were always of a high order. Many of them, as 
they fell from his lips, were felt to be eloquent in a 
truly noble sense. He knew how to create the mighty 
rushing torrent, and how to distribute its power into 
gentle fructifying streams. His writings are all fresh 
and suggestive. You can feel his ardency in every 
sentence. For style, there are few writers more pure 
— none more natural. Seldom has an author succeeded 
in throwing more true geniality into his publications. 
Strangers, in reading his works, are made to feel at 
every paragraph that they are in company with a 
warm and congenial friend. His faith was no less 
radiated by this central element in his being. For his 



BACK TO OLD MERCBRSBURG. 



275 



mind, God was in Christ and Christ was in the Church 
— all under so real and organic a form as to place the 
Divine kingdom entirely above and beyond the effects 
both of error in its own bosom and of all the wrath and 
rage of its foes on the outside. He loved history as 
the concurrent testimony of God in a human form, in 
favor of the unalterable and indestructible principles of 
essential truth. ' ' 

Dr. Giesy, in the Messenger of February 5th, 
follows with these words : 

' ' All his writings bear the stamp, not only of his 
genius, but of his theology. There is here one char- 
acteristic most refreshingly prominent. It pervades 
everything he wrote, for it was the very center of his 
whole Christian life, as well as the ground- work and 
solid foundation of all his theological teachings ; we 
mean, of course, the Christological tone and thought 
everywhere appearing. His inaugural address, among 
the ablest of his productions, is especially full of this 
kind of sound thinking. His earlier productions also 
— the three volumes on Heaven — breathing the spirit 
of that sound Christological theology for which he was 
so eminent, and full of the poetry of his own sanctified 
experience, have brought edification and comfort to 
thousands of mourners within and beyond the pale of 
his own communion, who sympathized with him in that 
subdued feeling of homesickness for heaven and its 
sainted inhabitants, which he so beautifully and ten- 
derly portrayed." 



276 WFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Probably no two men were ever more congenial 
and affectionate in their personal and social inter- 
course than Dr. Philip Schaff and Dr. Harbaugh, 
and it seems but natural to read from Dr. Schaff 
the following peculiarly strong and expressive trib- 
ute in The Christian World : 

" Dr. Harbaugh was no common man. He was en- 
dowed with rare gifts of mind and heart, and indomi- 
table energy and perseverance. He had an exuberant 
vitality, a rich imagination, great power of populariz- 
ing and illustrating deep thought, and an unfailing 
source of genuine good-natured humor. The defects of 
his early education he made up by intense application. 
By the integrity of his character, and the disinterested- 
ness of his labors, he won the esteem, and, by the kind- 
ness and generosity of his heart, secured the affection 
of all who knew him. His cheerful disposition, rich 
humor, and an inexhaustible fund of original anecdotes, 
made him a most agreeable companion/ ' 

Dr. Bausman, who edited and prepared for publi- 
cation the Pennsylvania-German poems, after Dr. 
Harbaugh' s death, and who succeeded to the editor- 
ship of the Guardian in 1866, was for many years 
in close sympathy with the hopes and purposes of 
Dr. Harbaugh. The two men spent many a happy 
hour together discussing their then present work 
and the plans they had for the future. These little 
conferences would rarely ever close without a read- 
ing or discussion of " Das Alt Schul Haus an Der 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 



277 



Krick n or other Pennsylvania-German poems, 
which seemed to furnish humor and amusement in 
abundance for them. 

Dr. Bailsman's tribute to the memory ot his friend, 
from the Guardian of February, 1868, which is 
given below in part, breathes all through it the 
tenderness of brotherly affection : 

' ' Before this number of the Guardian shall have 
reached its readers, they will have been apprised of the 
death of Dr. H. Harbaugh. The sad event has cast a 
gloom over the church which his life and learning have 
adorned for nearly twenty-five years Person- 
ally we mourn the loss of a sincere and fast friend. 
He seemed like an ' elder brother,' whose heart, with 
watchful tenderness, followed us from the moment 
when we were ' first become acquaint. ' It was in the 
old stone church at Lancaster, Pa. His friends and 
admirers had often praised his character and talents to 
us. Now he had become pastor of the First Church 
in that city — pastor of our parents. On a visit home, 
during college vacation, we went with them to church, 
and there heard him preach and received his cordial 
grasp of the hand for the first time. Since then we 
have directly or indirectly been under his moulding 
power. We preached our first sermon in his pulpit. 
He assisted at our ordination. Helped to install us at 
Reading. Followed us, through his letters, with mar- 
velous affection when traveling abroad. With all his 
arduous work, he would rise in the morning before 
dawn, to pen sweet greetings and cheer us on our 
18 



27 8 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

journey in a foreign land. Letters they were, longer 
than the sermons he preached, full of the love of home 
and heaven. With an ecstasy of delight we pored 
over them again and again, until the charms of Rome 
and the sacred memories of Jerusalem were forgotten 
under the enchantment of his loving heart. As he 
held ours, so held he the hearts of hundreds of others, 
who mourn as if they had lost a natural father. Fare 
thee well, thou sainted brother ! Sweet be thy joys in 
the realms of the 'sainted dead !' Our hearts follow 
thee to the edge of the Jordan. Along its banks we 
linger, lonely and lost, because thou hast passed out 
of sight.' ' 

Referring to his election to the professorship in 
the seminary, Dr. D. Y. Heisler says : 

* ' No better choice could possibty have been made for 
this important post than that which the synod, guided 
by a higher power, actually did make when they elected 
Dr. Harbaugh as the future guide and preceptor of the 
sons of the church, to prepare them for the work of the 
holy ministry. Intellectually and spiritually, as well 
as by his naturally happy temperament, he was admir- 
ably adapted to gain the confidence and hold in un- 
broken sympathy with himself the hearts and affections 
of the young brethren who came under his potent and 
controlling influence. He had a peculiar power to 
illustrate and make familiar the most important and 
abstruse questions in philosophy and theology. He was 
in the best and highest sense a popularizer of what was 
naturally deep and obscure. His rare power lay in a 



BACK TO OLD M3RC3RSBURG. 



279 



peculiarly happy combination of profound speculation 
and a semi-poetical and familiar mode of representation. 
The higher exercises of the intellectual faculties were 
thus brought into living union with the familiar objects 
of every-day life, and thus rendered intelligible and 
attractive to men of even the most ordinary capacities. 

' ' How wonderfully this combination of two seem- 
ingly opposite qualities in the constitution of Dr. Har- 
baugh aided him in his work, and gave him power and 
influence over others, was felt not only by the students, 
but also by all our ministers and laymen who came in 
contact with him. His sermons, always simple and in 
one sense unadorned, were yet supremely beautiful, 
attractive, and edifying. He never failed, in his pulpit 
efforts, to gain the attention of his auditors and to 
retain it to the end of the discourse. His power to 
particularize and bring out the latent force and most 
striking peculiarities of a passage was wonderful ; and 
this power of accurate discrimination in the case of any 
and every subject brought to his notice, enabled him 
1 to make the most of it' in the best sense of the phrase. 
This controling influence over the minds and hearts of 
men was also frequently witnessed in the discussions on 
the floor of classis and of the synod. Few men were 
more ready and successful in public debate than he, and 
his great earnestness always procured him a respectful 
hearing and the solidity of his arguments seldom failed 
to carry conviction to the minds of the listeners. 

' 'As a theologian, Dr. Harbaugh had few equals and 
no superiors. He had thoroughly mastered all the 
deep and interesting questions relating to the person 



2 8o UFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

and work of Christ, and the practical duties arising 
therefrom. In the deeper and more spiritual views of 
Christianity which the late Christological discussions 
had brought into vogue, he was especially at home ; 
and much of his power and influence, both in the 
pulpit and in the professorial chair, was undoubtedly 
owing to this higher and sounder theological position 
which he occupied. With all his vast intellectual 
power and moral earnestness, he could never have 
exercised this moulding influence on any other ground. 
In the power of these lofty theological ideas, he was 
pre-eminently mighty — mighty in the consciousness of 
his own moral rectitude, and mighty in the overpower- 
ing influence which he exerted upon the others around 
him. 

' ' Dr. Harbaugh took a deep interest in all the pub- 
lic movements of the church. Her various benevolent 
enterprises, her literary and theological institutions, 
her late Tercentenary celebration, and the formation 
and introduction of a better system of worship — all 
these enlisted his warmest sympathies and called forth 
his most earnest efforts. He was a member of the 
liturgical committee, and took a most active part in the 
formation of the i Orders of Worship. ' Many of its 
offices were prepared by him, either wholly or in part, 
at least. In connection with this great and good work, 
he rendered the German Reformed Church of this 
country a most valuable and enduring service. 

' ' Altogether, Dr. Harbaugh was an extraordinary 
man. His private character was unexceptionable. His 
social qualities were of the highest order. Few men, 



BACK TO OIvD MKRCKRSBURG. 28 1 

indeed, could make themselves more agreeable in society 
than he. As a friend, he was trusty, confiding, and 
ardent. As a ' preacher of righteousness' he was bold 
and fearless, and as an expositor of the sacred Scrip- 
tures he had no superior. His sermons were always 
solid, fresh, and instructive, and in the highest degree 
interesting and edifying. As a pastor he was faithful, 
kind, and compassionate — in lively sympathy with the 
wants of his people. As a theologian he was thorough, 
earnest, and positive — eminently clear and decided in 
his views, and in perfect sympathy with the teachings 
of God's most blessed Word. Before the overpowering 
majesty of this glorious revelation of the Divine will 
and purposes he bowed in profoundest reverence, and 
silent, childlike submission." 

Few persons enter upon the fortieth year of their 
life without experiencing some very sober reflec- 
tions upon the half of life that has passed away, 
and the half that may be for them in the future. 
Few also, it may be said, make such a record of 
their meditations as is given below from the diary 
of Henry Harbaugh, October 28, 1857. In its 
character as autobiography, it is clearly pertinent 
to these pages. It is a good specimen of his dic- 
tion, though not directed to the general reader, and 
from still another point of view, it is strangely, 
sadly prophetic : 

' ' * The days of our years are three score and ten ; and if by 
reason of strength they be four score years. ' Four score, or eighty 
years, are accordingly the full allotment of man. This being 



282 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

so, if I should be permitted to reach the fullest period of human 
life — which I do not expect — I am now half-way on my life's 
journey. 

" It is perhaps this thought that has made my present birth- 
day peculiarly solemn to me. I have hitherto felt like a young 
man, and have ever found it difficult to realize my age ; but I 
am to-day forcibly reminded that I am fairly in the region of 
manhood, and fast on the way to the end of life. Childhood 
and youth are fairly and forever in the past ; and as I pass be- 
yond forty I feel sensibly that these periods or seasons of life 
do no more slope up to me ; but I feel as if I were in a measure, 
outwardly at least, sundered from them ; and hereafter memory 
will have to travel over a space to reach them. Farewell then — 
though not in sweet memory — my childhood and youth. 

"True, should the fullest period of life, as intimated by the 
Psalmist, be mine — on this supposition I speak — it would still in 
reality be longer to come than past, as far as it pertains to the 
actual work of life. Of the period past, the first ten years 
were spent in childhood, the next ten in youth — the next six in 
a course of preparation for my office — and then the remaining 
fourteen only have been spent in what I regard as the true work 
of my life — inasmuch as I was licensed at the synod which sat 
from October 12th to October 19th, 1843. 

* ' I have exercised myself with many solemn and pleasant 
reflections to-day by looking through the Bible to see what events 
are connected in it with the period of life which I have now 
reached. 

' ' I find first of all that Isaac and Esau were both forty years 
old when they were married, Gen. xxv. , 20 ; xxvi. , 24. 

" Israel did eat manna in the wilderness forty years, Ex. 
x vi., 35 ; Neh. ix., 33, and that so long also they wandered in 
the wilderness, Num. xiv., 33. xxxii., 13; Deut. ii., 7; viii., 
2 ; xxix. , 5 ; Josh. x. , 6. I have been led the same length of 
time, but I cannot say it was in a wilderness. The Lord has 
most mercifully granted me a pleasant way, crowning it with 
loving kindness and tenderness. My life, as compared with 
that of thousands, has been a happy life. I have not only 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 283 

enjoyed health of body and mind, but have been prospered in 
all my undertakings ; so that I am often amazed when I think 
of God's goodness in this respect, and array His mercies by the 
side of my deserts. He has not failed also to give me manna 
by the way, so that I have not lacked anything that I actually 
needed. If at times His strokes have fallen upon me, ' His 
strokes were fewer than my crimes and lighter than my guilt.' 
And now I say, as I have a thousand times said on a review of 
God's dealings with me: 'O bless the Lord, for He is good.' 
More — far more — by love than by wrath has He led me. Much 
more of His drawings than of His drivings have I felt. Many 
more prosperous than adverse providence have attended my 
life. It is my prayer that He may not find it necessary to 
change His dealings with me, and be compelled by my unfaith- 
fulness to put me yet under the discipline of trial, terror, and 
tribulation. 

' ' Caleb was forty years old when Moses sent him to espy out 
the land, Joshua, xiv., 7. When he was 84 years old he could 
say : ' And now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. 
As yet I am as strong this day, as I was in the day that Moses 
sent me ; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, 
for war, both to go out and to come in. ' Verse ii. Should God 
permit me to see so many years my prayer is that reasonable 
strength of body and mind may also continue to be mine. 
Especially do I pray that my mind may not fail me to the last, 
whether that be sooner or later. 

1 ' God gave the children of Israel into the hands of the Phil- 
istines forty years, because they did evil in His sight, Judges 
xiii., 1. When I remember that the same God still reigns, and 
on the other hand that even though I have endeavored to do 
some good for myself and others, yet that every day has had its 
sin for the whole of my forty years, I have reason to fear that 
it may be necessary for God still to send me forth into the hands 
of disciplinary providence. May His mere}', as it has ever been, 
continue to be above all that I deserve or can steadily bring 
myself to hope for. Do I not further find that Eli, after he had 
judged Israel forty years (I. Sam. iv., 18), nevertheless passed 



284 LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

through severe and mournful trials in his last years ! To a 
merciful Father, in Christ Jesus, I cheerfully commend myself. 
His goodness through the past, is a source of wonderful comfort 
to me as I look into the future. 

" David reigned forty years over Israel, II. Sam., v., 4; I. 
Kings, ii., ii. I wonder, and am humbled, where I read that 
during all this time ' David did that which was right in the eyes 
of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he com- 
manded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of 
Uriah the Hittite, ' I. Kings xv. ,5. Of my own life, I am deeply 
sensible that this cannot be said. My comfort is that the blood 
which can take away one sin, can also take away many. ' Her 
sins which are many, are forgiven,' Luke vii., 47. These are 
consoling words. I humbly claim them, now by faith as spoken 
in reference to myself. For that end has my Saviour left them 
on record. It is as easy for Him to forgive many as few ; oh 
that it were as easy for us to love much in return — even accord- 
ing as we have had much forgiven. 

"Solomon's reign was also forty years, I. Kings xi., 42. Of 
him the same cannot be said as of his father David. He sinned 
often ; and we have reason to suppose from his book of Bccle- 
siastes — supposed to have been written in his old age — that he 
had much of darkness and tribulation to endure in his last 
years. As a kind of temporal atonement for the evil of his 
life. Perhaps it is necessary that this should be so for two 
reasons : 1. That he himself might be humbled on account of 
his sins, and be turned to have a better mind. 2. That others 
might see that, though the penitent are saved, yet even to them 
sin brings sorrow. May God deliver me from sin, that I may 
escape the sorrow. ' ' 

The present writer has frequently had the pleas- 
ure of meeting with ministers and laymen of the 
Reformed Church w r ho have spoken to him of the 
varied traits of Dr. Harbaugh's character as they 
have fallen within the experience of each one per- 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 285 

sonally. Not realizing upon these various occa- 
sions the inestimable value of a note book to be 
stored up against the time of such a writing as 
this, these incidents have been allowed to pass 
into dim memory from which they cannot now be 
recalled in detail. 

In conversation with the Rev. Dr. Cyrus Cort 
on the occasion of the funeral of the Rev. William 
Goodrich at Clearspring, Md., May 9th, 1899, he 
spoke in very eulogistic terms of the impressions 
made upon him by the writings, teachings, and 
personality of Dr. Harbaugh. He had been a 
reader of the Guardian from its first issue, and in 
later years, by the special request of Dr. Harbaugh, 
had been a frequent contributor to its pages. Pub- 
licly on the floor of Potomac Synod he had depre- 
cated the discontinuance of the publication of that 
monthly magazine which had done so much to 
cultivate a taste for wholesome reading among the 
members of the Reformed Church, and had served 
as a vehicle for the presentation of many valuable 
articles by Reformed writers which were not suited 
either for the weekly church. paper or the " Quar- 
terly Review." During his four years course in 
Franklin and Marshall College at Lancaster, Pa. , 
from 1856 to i860, Dr. Cort had regularly attended 
not only the Sunday evening services of Dr. Har- 
baugh in the First Reformed Church, but the 
afternoon catechetical lectures for the benefit of 



286 MFB OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 

college students in the Sunday-school. He was 
free to confess that he received more benefit from 
the instructions of Dr. Harbaugh than from any of 
the college professors, with perhaps a single excep- 
tion. After Dr. Harbaugh became Theological 
Professor in the Seminary at Mercersburg, Pa. , they 
became closely associated as members of the same 
classis, and also of the Board of Regents of Mer- 
cersburg College. To quote Dr. Cort more closely: 

"Dr. Harbaugh was present as my special guest, 
Nov. 17, 1863, at Altoona, Pa., when Mercersburg 
Classis took Christ Reformed Mission Church under its 
care ten months after its organization under the auspices 
of the Westmoreland Classis. This was on the eve of 
the organization of General Synod at Pittsburg. The 
occasion evidently made a deep impression on his mind, 
as the following entry made by him on a fly leaf of my 
Provisional liturgy, lying on my study table, indi- 
cated, viz : 

'Tuesday before the 25th Sunday after Trinity, 1863, 
* Memorable in the history of the Altoona mission. 

'H. H.' 

' ' When the corner-stone of our sandstone Gothic 
church was laid at Altoona, July 31, 1864, he preached 
the sermon on I. Thes., 1 : 3-8, commending ' the work 
of faith, the labor of love and patience of hope' exem- 
plified by the Thessalonians, to our little Reformed 
flock on the Keystone mountains, if they would succeed 
in their important undertaking in behalf of the kingdom 
of our Iyord and Saviour. 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 287 

" It was my privilege to hear Dr. Harbaugh speak 
grandly on many occasions, but his greatest effort, 
and, in m}^ opinion, the greatest forensic effort ever 
made on the floor of any Reformed assembly in the 
United States, was his reply to Dr. J. H. A. Bom- 
berger on the liturgical question at the meeting of the 
mother or Eastern Synod, in York, Pa., October, 1866. 
Dr. Nevin and others made splendid speeches on the 
same subject at the same time and on other occasions, 
notably at the General Synod at Dayton a few weeks 
later, but for overwhelming argument, wit, sarcasm, 
humor, and eloquence, the speech of Dr. Harbaugh at 
York Synod, in 1866, stands unequaled. 

"As the only person alive who has attended all the 
meetings of General Synod since its organization in the 
fall of 1863, and heard all the important discussions 
before that body, I am in a good position to speak. 
My opinion is also fully confirmed by Rev. Dr. S. G. 
Wagner and other competent judges present at York, 
Dayton, &c. 

"In the earlier part of his career Dr. Harbaugh 
seemed to entertain rather narrow Puritanic views on 
question of political and humanitarian reform, but as he 
was apprehended by the Christological mode of thought 
his views and sympathies were broadened and mellowed 
in a very perceptible degree. Dr. Titzell and I had 
ample evidence of this while helping to care for the sick 
and wounded with Dr. Harbaugh on the bloody field of 
Gettysburg the week following the great battle. He 
had profound reverence for Dr. John W. Nevin. Point- 
ing to his picture on his study wall one day he said to 



288 IvIFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

me, ' He is the father of us all. ' Referring about the 
same time to the Heidelberg Catechism, he remarked : 
' It is wonderful how well guarded that little book is on 
all important points of doctrine.' 

1 * No minister in the Reformed Church ever sur- 
passed Dr. Harbaugh in the happy faculty of illustrat- 
ing profound theological doctrines in a way that 
brought them within the grasp of the humblest Chris- 
tian. He did important and heroic service as a pioneer 
originator of new and valuable publications. He was 
the father and founder of the Guardian, the Reformed 
Church Almanac, the resuscitated Mercersburg Review, 
the Lives of Fathers of the Reformed Church, etc. He 
was the leading spirit in the celebration of the three 
hundredth anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism, 
1863, and other enterprising historical movements of 
vast benefit to the Reformed Church. Pennsylvania- 
German poetry in its best phases was originated by him 
and given a world-wide reputation. 

' 'His was a many-sided mind after the order of 
Leibnitz, Goethe, etc., at home in philosophy, litera- 
ture, and poetry. 

' ' Every genuine theologian possesses more or less of 
the poetic element, and like Dr. Lange, whose writings 
he greatly admired, Dr. Harbaugh possessed the poetic 
spirit in an eminent degree and thus was often enabled 
to interpret the deep things of the spirit world and 
bring forth choice flowers and fruit from the garden of 
the Lord where prosaic minds could discover nought 
but a barren waste. 



BACK TO OIvD MKRCKRSBURG. 289 

" For what Dr. Harbaugh did for me personally, and 
for the church of my fathers, I shall always gratefully 
cherish his memory. ' ' 

Hon. M. A. Foltz, founder and editor of Public 
Opinion, Chambersburg, Pa., has this interesting 
recollection : 

" While in the employ of the Publication House in 
Chambersburg from April, 1861, to the burning of the 
town on the 30th of July, 1864, it was my good fortune 
to frequently meet Dr. Harbaugh. His visits, only too 
infrequent, were especially grateful to Dr. Fisher and 
other Chambersburg friends, Drs. Schneck, Bausman, 
and Davis among the number. It was during the early 
years of the pastorate of Dr. Davis that Dr. Harbaugh 
was one of a favored company of divines who by ap- 
pointment would spend an afternoon in the study of 
4 The Young Parson. ' The Doctor spoke of the 
delights of these little gatherings, and how on one occa- 
sion Dr. Harbaugh, taking possession of the couch, 
said : * Preach, Davis ; I want to sleep.' 

"In the printing establishment the manuscript of 
Dr. Harbaugh was regarded as a favorite ' take' with 
compositors. His chirography was round, plain, and 
distinct, and if a word was abbreviated it was as if 
chosen as much for the ready discernment of the printer 
as for his own convenience. Those who are acquainted 
with the MSS. of the principal writers and authors of 
the church's literary productions of that period will 
appreciate the relief it must have proven to the sorely 
vexed compositor to get hold of Dr. Harbaugh' s copy. 



290 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



By them, for instance, a page of Dr. SchafPs manu- 
script would be likened to a map of the state. It was 
not so difficult to follow until you struck the interline- 
ations. These traveled to the margin or any unoccu- 
pied corner of the sheet in all sorts of hieroglyphics. ' ' 

In a letter to Dr. Bausman, October 24, 1867, 
Dr. Harbaugh intimates in his own pathetic words 
the beginning of the end : 

' * Little did I think when I promised to be at Wom- 
elsdorf on the occasion of the dedication of the Orphans' 
Home, that this sickness, now over two months, was 
going to linger thus. If I were there I could speak, as 
my mind is perfectly clear, and I have strength to last 
me at least half an hour's talk. But I am giddy and 
could not travel alone. I stagger like a drunken man. 
Fell twice the other day on my head and fell three times 
going up stairs. I expected every day to be better ; 
but I fear it is injudicious to let you hope for me longer. 
If I can I will come, but I have little hope. The doctor 
says it may be two or three weeks before it leaves me 
altogether. Think I can take up my seminary duties 
next week by having the classes come to my house." 

From that time forward the symptoms began to 
be more alarming, and on December 17, Dr. Thomas 
G. Apple wrote : 

" Poor Dr. Harbaugh, our dear brother, is still low. 
For the last few days he is a little better, but the phy- 
sician has little or no hope. He has been prayed for 
day by day and preserved thus far, beyond our expec- 



BACK TO OlyD MKRCKRSBURG. 



291 



tations. The Lord can raise him up for the church. 
... If only Dr. Harbaugh gets well, how happy we 
will all be. Then we can stand the fight of the Gnos- 
tics." 

Dr. Apple, though charged with much extra 
work in the seminary at this time, was unceasing 
in his watchfulness at the sick bed. He contributed 
to the Messenger the following account of Dr. Har- 
baugh's last illness : 

i ' He was first taken sick about the beginning of 
September, a few days before the opening of the session 
in the Theological Seminary. He had been on a visit 
to Waynesboro, at the close of his vacation, where he 
was attacked with severe pains in the head, accom- 
panied with fever. After coming home, he passed 
through what, at first, appeared to be an ordinary spell 
of bilious fever. From this illness he arose after some 
five or six weeks, and was able to move about the 
house, and even to go out. At this time, however, 
some alarming symptoms began to show themselves, in 
the slowness of his recovery, and especially in a certain 
dizziness, so that he was unable steadily to direct the 
movements of his body ; and the surmises of the physi- 
cian began to be confirmed that he was suffering from 
a cerebro-spinal affection. After three or four weeks, 
he relapsed into his former state, suffering now more 
than ever in his head. From this time on his mind 
became somewhat affected, giving additional evidence 
that the disease was centered in his head. For some 
days he was in a revived and apparently convalescent 



292 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



state, and then again he fell into a dull, comatose con- 
dition, from which it became difficult to arouse him. 
His disease became thus of a remittent character. After 
being aroused from one of these dull states, we had a 
service in his room, in which he united with us in sing- 
ing two of his favorite hymns, and in repeating the 
words of the Apostles' Creed. 

" His last revived state continued longer than usual, 
and gave us some hopes that perhaps the disease had 
passed its crisis. On Sunday evening before Christmas, 
he gave indications of again passing into a worse con- 
dition. On that day, his mind seemed tolerably rational. 
He knew that Christmas was near ; and, in answer to 
a question we proposed to him, he promptly named the 
day on which it would occur. 

" From this time on he continued to grow worse. On 
Christmas day he was able to take some nourishment, 
and a little again on Thursday morning. From that 
time on he lay in a heavy sleep, from which he could 
not be aroused ; the symptoms continued to become 
more alarming, and on the evening of that day dis- 
patches were sent to his friends that he was not ex- 
pected to live. All human help was now unavailing, 
and we could only sit by his bedside and watch him 
through the heavy hours which brought him nearer to 
his end. On Saturday, the last day of his earthly life, 
when he seemed to be entering the valley and shadow 
of death, we joined in the prayer and litany for the 
dying, commending his spirit to God. At four o'clock 
in the afternoon he peacefully, without a struggle, 
breathed his last, and fell asleep in Jesus. 



BACK TO OIvD MERCERSBURG. 293 

* ' During these trying seasons the utmost kindness 
and affectionate regard was manifested for their beloved 
teacher by the students of the Theological Seminary. 
One of them, Mr. Jacob F. Wiant, became from the 
beginning of his sickness his constant attendant. Be- 
yond any other we have ever known, this young 
brother seemed to possess the special gift of ministering 
in the sick-chamber. His affectionate attentions were 
devoted day and night to his beloved professor. He 
stood by his bedside wiping away the cold death-sweat 
from his brow until he breathed his last. 

"The other students also joined affectionately in 
watching with him to the last. 

" Thus Dr. Harbaugh passed away at Mercersburg, 
Pennsylvania, in the midst of his labors, December 
28th, 1867, aged fifty years and two months. 

"His funeral took place on Tuesday, the 31st day of 
December, the last day of the year 1867. The immense 
multitude in attendance was formed into a procession 
at the house, whence they proceeded to the sanctuary 
of God. Arriving at the church the opening sentences 
in the office for the burial of the dead were read, as 
the procession passed slowly along the aisle, by Rev. 
Dr. J. W. Nevin. The 90th Psalm was then chanted 
in subdued tones by the choir. The Scripture lesson 
was read by Dr. R. S. Schneck, followed by the first 
prayer, offered by Dr. E. V. Gerhart. A sermon was 
then preached by Dr. Nevin, from the words : ' But I 
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concern- 
ing them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as 
other which have no hope. For if we believe that 

19 



294 



LIFE OF HKNRY HARBAUGH. 



Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which 
sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him.' (I. Thes., 
iv., 13O 

" At this point the resolutions, adopted in a meeting 
held in the lecture room of the seminary the evening 
previous, were read by Prof. Theo. Apple. Rev. B. 
Bausman then read the 183rd hymn, from ' Hymns and 
Chants,' commencing ' Forever with the L,ord,' which 
the choir sang to a tune which, as well as the hymn, 
was a favorite with Dr. Harbaugh, and had been sung 
in the sick-chamber during his illness. 

' ' The procession then proceeded to the grave imme- 
diately in front of the church, and opposite the ceno- 
taph of Dr. Rauch, where the remains were deposited 
according to the service provided in the liturgy, which 
was read by Dr. Nevin. 

" The Reformed Church, in which the services were 
held, was still clothed in the beautiful Christmas deco- 
rations ; but these were now draped in mourning. The 
surroundings, as the corpse lay before the altar, were 
beautiful even in their sadness. They were just such 
as Dr. Harbaugh would have chosen to surround his 
body in its burial. The Christmas decorations were 
there to speak forth his own love for the festal days and 
their pious observance in the church, which he always 
so earnestly advocated, and in which he loved to join. 
The liturgical service was among the last works which 
he gave to the church, the office for burial being 
mainly his own contribution as a member of the Lit- 
urgical Committee. Though the emblems of mourning 
were now mingled with these decorations, yet the joy 



BACK TO OLD MBRCBRSBURG. 



295 



of a Saviour's birth triumphed still over the sorrow of 
the grave. That birth looked, through death, to the 
resurrection, in which all our hopes of a blessed immor- 
tality center. This hope and comfort were brought 
home to our sorrowing hearts by Dr. Nevin, in his ser- 
mon, in such a way as to enable us to be filled with 
Christian peace even in the deepest sorrow. J ' 

An imposing monument was erected to his mem- 
ory by the Synod of the Reformed Church, which, 
with appropriate religious services, was unveiled 
on the 1 8th of October, 1870. 

A procession formed in the seminary campus, 
embracing the students and faculties of the Theo- 
logical Seminary and Mercersburg College, and 
ministers and others in attendance from abroad. 
The procession gathered around the monument, 
where the services took place. Dr. Thomas G. 
Apple then spoke as follows : 

" Henry Harbaugh, whose body lies buried at our 
feet, fell asleep in Jesus on the 28th day of December, 
in the year of our Lord 1867. Through all his extreme 
sufferings he continued unto the end firm in the Holy 
Catholic and Apostolic Faith which he had taught and 
defended with exemplary fidelity throughout his life. 
Called from his many labors and arduous toils, he hath 
gone before us into rest, and joined the holy fellowship 
of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and the 
whole glorious company of the redeemed of all ages 
who have died in the L,ord and now live with Him for- 



296 WFK OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

evermore. The church therefore in whose service he 
labored, mindful of the great grace and many gifts be- 
stowed on him by God, and rejoicing in the blessed 
communion of saints over which death hath no power, 
has erected this monument which we now unveil. ' ' 

(Here the minister paused until the monument was unveiled, 
and then proceeded as follows : ) 

" And now let this monument show forth, during all 
time to come, the gratitude of the Church to God, the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the good example 
of his servant whom she honors, and for the blessed 
privilege which her children enjoy of having part in 
the glorious company of all those who have gone before 
them in the way of salvation, and let it inspire all who 
may look upon it with zeal to follow the faith of those 
saints who have died in the Lord and now live with 
Him for ever more." . 

The following ministers from abroad were pres- 
ent : Rev. J. O. Miller, a member of the synod's 
committee, who was chiefly active in preparing the 
design of the monument ; G. L. Staley, S. S. Miller, 
S. G. Wagner, J. S. Kieffer, William Goodrich, 
T. J. Seiple, J. Hassler, W. C. B. Shulenberger, 
Dr. M. Kieffer, S. N. Callender, G. B. Russell, and 
G. H. Johnston. There were also a number of 
elders and laymen from different portions of the 
church present, and many friends of Dr. Harbaugh 
from Greencastle, Chambersburg, Clearspring, and 
other places in the vicinity. The public schools of 



BACK TO OLD MERCBRSBURG. 



297 



the town were closed and a large concourse of citi- 
zens came to pay their respects to the memory of 
the departed. The church was filled. A deep 
solemnity pervaded the audience, who listened with 
intense interest to the memorial address, prepared 
by Dr. E. V. Gerhart and read by Dr. E. E. Hig- 
bee. * 

The monument is of fine Italian marble, twelve 
feet high, resting on a granite base and terminating 
in a cross. It is in tableau design ; the front sur- 
face resting on three terraces of stone, is three feet 
in width. Just under the cross and above the 
shield which bears his name, title, and date of birth 
and death, the artist has cut an almost life size bust, 
and on the right of the shield, in three-quarter re- 
lief, stands a student with book in hand weeping. 
On the other side of the shield stands the figure of 
an angel, also in three-quarter relief, with head un- 
covered and face turned upward, the forefinger of 
the right hand pointing upward. This angel bears 
in his other hand a palm leaf, the symbol of vic- 
tory. On the two lower terraces of marble, in front, 
is the lettering. On the upper, a stanza from one 
of Dr. Harbaugh's hymns as follows : 

' ' Living or dying, Lord, 
I ask but to be Thine ; 
My life in Thee, Thy life in me, 
Makes heav'n forever mine." 

* Reformed Church Messenger, Oct. 26, 1870. 



298 WFB OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

The lower slab, immediately above the granite 
base, contains simply the family name — " Har- 
baugh." 

Upon the right and left face of this lower block 
are cut two extracts from the Pennsylvania-German 
poem, "Heemweh," which in the original is 
touching and full of pathos. The one is : 

" O warm's net vor der Himmel war, 

Mit seiner scheene Ruh, 
Dann war m'r's do schun lang verleedt, 

Ich wisst net, was zu dhu. 
Doch Hoffnung leichtet meinen Weg 

Der ew'gen Heemet zu." 

On the other side, from the same poem — 

" Dort find m'r, was m'rdo verliert, 
Un b' halt's in Kwigkeit ; 
Dort lewe unsre Dodte all, 
In Ivicht un ew'ger Freid !" 

Other memorials of Dr. Harbaugh have been 
placed in recent years in several of the churches of 
which he was at one time pastor. When the First 
Reformed Church, Lancaster, Pa., was remodelled 
recently, among the memorial windows was one to 
him erected by the ladies of the congregation. On 
the occasion of the rebuilding of " Harbaugh's 
Church," which stands almost within a stone's 
throw of the old homestead in Franklin County, 
Pa., the large window at the front of the building 
was erected to the memory of Dr. Harbaugh by his 
family. In the chapel of the new seminary at 



BACK TO OLD MBRCBRSBURG. 



299 



Lancaster, Pa., all the windows are memorials to 
the former professors — one being in memory of Dr. 
Harbaugh. 

In the reading room of the seminary at Lancaster 
hangs a portrait in oil of Dr. Harbaugh, which is 
pronounced, by those who knew him in life, to be 
a most excellent and faithful likeness. It was pre- 
sented by Mr. B. Wolff, Jr., of Pittsburg, Pa., and 
was unveiled November 22, 1897, in the presence 
of a large number of friends and several members 
of the immediate family of Dr. Harbaugh. 

Much of the narrative contained in the foregoing 
chapter has been gathered from those who were 
personal friends of Dr. Harbaugh, and perhaps the 
writer has here and there appropriated too liberally, 
and presumed too far upon the friendship of those 
amongst whom he passed his childhood days on the 
old college campus at Mercersburg. 

The boy of seven years can have few personal 
recollections to offer upon any subject, but the few 
impressions he has carried forward in memory to 
mature years must be true and unfeigned. 

Dr. Harbaugh loved childhood and children. It 
was his delight to watch them at play, and he 
cherished up their sayings in his heart. His 
addresses to young people disclosed a rare talent, 
and the abstractions of the lecture room or study 
and sternness of manner he never carried with him 
to an audience of young people or into the com- 



3oo 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



pany of little folks. For the latter he had Christ- 
inas stories from the German and Christmas stories 
of his own. His patient, sympathetic eyes could 
draw the timidest child in confidence to his arms, 
and he could console their little griefs with inno- 
cent diversions that seemed to suit the require- 
ments of each particular childish calamity. His 
fund of riddles and anecdotes for children was 
usually of the kind to lead their minds gently to 
the Scriptures. 

There are many students now in middle life who 
will remember well the old chapel with its walls 
papered in imitation of natural wood panels and 
frame work, giving it somewhat of a massive and 
mediaeval appearance. Some no doubt will remem- 
ber, too, the last Sunday upon which Dr. Har- 
baugh conducted the service there in 1867. His 
form was still erect, but his locks had whitened 
and the wonted color of his face had fled. Near 
the end of his sermon he paused as though to 
gather up the threads of his thought. A little 
boy, mistaking this for the conclusion of the ser- 
vice, slipped quietly out of his place in the family 
pew and made his way up to the pulpit. As he 
reached out to take the hand of his father, the 
minister stooped gently down and amid the wave 
of amusement that passed over the assembly of 
students farther back in the chapel, whispered, " Sit 
down and wait for me, we will soon go home." 



BACK TO OLD MERCERSBURG. 301 

There on the step in front of the altar the little 
fellow sat, unembarrassed by the gaze of those in 
front of him, and secure in the protection of the 
beloved form that stood nearby. 

It is with this picture in mind — rather than that 
of the lingering months following it — that the 
present writer would lay down his pen. 



Why should a life that had come to be so valu- 
able to the church — so sympathetic in the life of 
the people — so affectionate and dear to IC the home 
of his heart," and the little ones that gathered 
around his knee — be thus taken away ? 

It is said that in the Alps of Switzerland, high up 
on the ledges of the mountain side, there are clumps 
and bits of sweet herbs or grass upon which the 
flocks love to feed. From the larger pastures below 
the path upward seems narrow and difficult to 
climb. The broader fields and easier way below are 
more inviting. 

The watchful shepherd, gently urging his flock 
upward to the pure air and richer pastures, some- 
times leads off one of his trusted ones, or perchance 
takes it up in his arms and makes his way along 
the narrow path. Beholding this, the timid, doubt- 
ing ones below take courage and begin to look up 
and to follow the lead of their shepherd and his 
trusted charge. Thus they all reach step by step 



302 



LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 



the higher and richer pasture, where they may enjoy 
the companionship of the one whom they have lost 
a while in the narrow way, but who has encouraged 
them to struggle upward, protected by the strong 
arm and assured by the gentle voice of their master. 
And now, as though in a voice from beyond the 
clouds, come the words of The Sainted Dead : 

" Lift up your heads, ye heavenly pilgrims, and be- 
hold your home ! Your earnest, longing eyes turned 
upward, declare plainly that you seek a country. 
' Blessed are they that are homesick, for they shall get 
home.' As yet there is woe unto you, because you 
sojourn in Mesech, and are compelled to tarry in the 
tents of Kedar ; but if you will, I shall speak comfort- 
ably to you, in the language of Canaan, by the way. 
Rest thee, then, upon thy staff, for even in this weary 
land whence ye go out, it is granted unto wayfaring 
men to turn aside for a night, to refresh themselves 
with rest under the shadow of a rock." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. A Plea for Temperance. 1845. A Pamphlet. 

2. A Word in Season, or a Plea for Legislative aid in putting 

down the evils of intemperance. Printed at the publication 
office of the German Reformed Church, Chambersburg, Pa. 
1S46. 50 pages. 

3. The Heidelberg Catechism, or Short Instruction in Chris- 

tian Doctrine, as it is conducted in the churches and 
schools of the Palatinate and elsewhere, explained and 
confirmed with proof passages from the Holy Scriptures. 
The whole adapted to the use of Catechetical Classes, Sab- 
bath Schools, and family instruction. Translated from the 
German by Rev. J. H. Good and Rev. H. Harbaugh. 
Chambersburg, M. Kiefler & Co., 1849. 

4. Woe to the Drunkard Maker ! A sermon preached in the 

German Reformed Church, Lewisburg, on the 8th, and in 
the Presbyterian Church, New Eerlin, on the 10th of July, 
1849, by Rev. Henry Harbaugh. Printed at the Good Sa- 
maritan office, New Berlin, Pa., 1S49, pp. 17. Second edi- 
tion printed at the office of the German Reformed Mess., 
Chambersburg, Pa., 1849. 

5. Three Volumes on the Future Life. 

The Sainted Dead, pp. 290, Phila., 1S4S. 
Heavenly Recognition, pp. 28S., Phila., 1851. 
The Heavenly Home, pp. 365, Phila., 1853. 

6. Founded the Guardian, a Monthly Magazine, in 1S50. Ed- 

itor of the Guardian. 1S50-1S66. 

7. "Trials and Triumphs of Genius;" an address delivered 

before the Gamma Theta Society of Strasburg Academy, 
Lancaster, 1852, pp. 16. 

8. The Duty and Privilege of Making a Public Profession of 

Religion, by connection with the church. Lancaster, Pa., 
1851, 32 pages. 



ii. LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

9. Union with the Church. 1853. 

10. The Birds of the Bible. 300 pages. 1854. 

11. Annals of the Harbaugh Family from 1736 to 1856. 16 mo. 
pp. 148. Chambersburg, Pa., 1861. 

12. Life of Michael Schlatter, Phila., 1857, pp. 375. 

13. The Fathers of the German Reformed Church in Europe 
and America, Lancaster, Pa., 1 857-1 858. Vol. I. pp. 394, 
Vol. II. pp. 408. 

14. The True Glory of Woman, pp. 263, Phila., 1858. 

15. The Lord's Portion, 1858. Reprinted at Reading, Pa., 1885, 
pp. 126. 

16. " Young Men." A Lecture delivered before the Young Men 
of Manheim, Feb. 11, 1859. 8 pages. 

17. Poems. Phila., i860, pp. 285. 

18. The Golden Censer. Phila., i860, pp. 419. 

19. Hymns and Chants. 1861, pp. 348. 

20. The Child's Catechism, pp. 80. Chambersburg, 1861. 

21. The Star of Bethlehem. A Christmas Story for Good Chil- 
dren. Lancaster, Pa., 1862. Pearsol & Geist. 20 pages. 

22. " Ueber Spaltungen und Unabhangigkeit in der Kirche 
Christi." Harrisburg, Pa., 1863. pp. 61. (Published 
anonymously. A copy in the library of Dr. J. H. Dubbs 
has the following in Harbaugh 's own handwriting in Ger- 
man script : Dr. L. H. Steiner, von dem Verfasser, H. Har- 
bach. ) 

23. " The Bright Light in the Clouds." A sermon delivered in 
St. John's Church, Lebanon, Pa., Sunday morning, Oct. 11, 

1863, in commemoration of Theo. D. Fisher, A.B. Leba- 
non, 1863, pp. 26. 

24. "The Religious Character of Washington." Chambers- 
burg, Pa., 1863, PP- 24. 

25. "Creed and Cultus." Article contributed and read before 
the Tercentenary Convention at Phila., in 1863. 

26. Farewell Words Addressed to St. John's Congregation in 
Lebanon, Pa., on the evening of Sunday after New Year, 

1864, 15 pp. 

27. " Christological Theology." Phila., 1864, pp. 80. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. iii. 

28. " Christmas : A Story for My Friends." From the German 
of Franz Hoffman. Phila., 1864, PP- I][ 4- 

29. A Plea for Beautiful Churches. A sermon preached at the 
dedication of the Church of the Cross, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
Dec. 20, 1863. 17 pages. Published by congregation, 1864. 

30. Treason and Law. A discourse delivered at Clearspring, 
Md. , June 1, 1865, the National day of mourning. 31 pages. 
Jas. B. Rodgers, Phila., Pa., 1865. 

31. "The German Burns," an article on the poet Johann Peter 
Hebel in the magazine, Hours at Home, October, 1866. 
Reprinted in the Guardian, 1868. 

32. Youth in Earnest. As illustrated in the life of Theodore 
David Fisher, A.M. S. R. Fisher & Co., Phila., 1867, 238 
pages. 

33. Contributed the Lives of Reformed Ministers to Dr. Mc- 
Clintock's Theological Cyclopaedia. 

34. Editor of the Mercersburg Review in 1867. 

35. Contributed many articles to the Reformed Church Mes- 
senger. 

36. Editor of The Child's Treasury. 

37. Originator and editor of the Church Almanac. 

POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS. 

38. Harbaugh's Harfe. A collection of his poems in the Ger- 
man Dialect of Pennsylvania, edited by Rev. B. Bausman, 
D.D. Phila., 1870, pp. 117. 

39. The Fathers of the Reformed Church. Vol. 3, edited by 
Rev. D. Y. Heisler, D.D. (1872}, pp. 493. 

40. The History of the First Reformed Church, Lancaster, Pa., 
published in Ellis and Evans' History of Lancaster Count}', 
is taken chiefly (down to 1851) from three Centenary Dis- 
courses preached Oct. 11 and 12, 185 1 (the manuscript is in 
possession of Mr. John B. Roth, Treasurer of the Theologi- 
cal Seminary of the Eastern Synod). 

The following are his contributions to the Mercers- 
burg Review ; 



i v . LIFE OF HENRY HARBAUGH. 

Reverence in Worship, 1849. 

Systematic Benevolence, 1851. 

The Doctrine of Christian Baptism, from the German of Dr. 
Martensen, 1852-1853. 

Parochial or Christian Schools, 1853. 

Christian Cultns : Its Nature, History and Relations, 1854-1855. 

The Land of Blessedness, from the German of Dr. Lange, 1854. 

Dr. Casper Olevianus, from the German of Max Goebel, 1855. 

Dr. Zacharias Ursinus, from the German of Max Goebel, 1855. 

Boardman on the Christian Ministry, 1856. 

Rev. Jacob Lischy, 1856. 

Inner Life of the Christian, 1857. 

The Church S}^stem and the Heidelberg Catechism, 1857. 

The First Liturgy for the Celebration of the Lord's Supper in 
the Reformed Church, 1857. 

Hymn of Bonaventura ; a translation, 1858. 

The Heidelberg Catechism : Its Formation and First Introduc- 
tion in the Palatinate, 1859. 

The Power Behind the Throne, 1859. 

Faith and Knowledge, 1859. 

Sy nodical Church Authority, i860. 

What is a Catechumen ? i860. 

The Literature of the Heidelberg Catechism, i860. 

The Early Introduction of Catechization in the Reformed 
Church, 1861. 

Catechisms, 1861. 

Introductory Article, 1867. 

The Christain Idea of Almsgiving, 1867. 

The Two Systems, 1867. 

The Essence and Form of Christianity, 1867. 

The Old Distinction between " Gemeinde" and "Kirche," 1867. 

The Church Doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sin (Posthumous), 
1868. 



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